Evidence suggests that jailed ‘journalist’ Sidhique Kappan who is charged with treason has links with radical jihadi elements associated with the Popular Front of India (PFI). To avoid detection, they operated using funds that originated from enemy nations. 

Desperation has set into the PFI camp and they are now resorting to targeting journalists who bring out truths about their anti-national activities. The latest on their evil radar is G Sreedathan, the managing director of the online portal Indus Scrolls. 

PFI and its stooges have begun a malicious campaign of hate using HINO (Hindus in name only) ‘journalists.’ A Hinduphobic far-left media portal called Newslaundry and its reporter Akanksha Kumar seem to have been recruited for PFI’s ‘Free Kappan’ campaign. It is alleged that Rs. 10 Cr has been sent from the UK for this campaign. Police suspect that money is being pumped in by various individuals and businessmen using the hawala route to fund these terror-whitewashing efforts. 

As their name suggests, Newslaundry picked up Kappan’s dirty linen for laundry and proved that their journalism depends not on facts but on planted lies.

Kappan & his paymasters aligned with the PFI are accused of funding the anti-CAA protests and the violence that followed in its aftermath. Having tried their best, they failed to spread the unrest throughout the country and they decided to move on to UP. They wanted to revive the old divide and rule policy and decided to use the caste route to create fissures within Hindu society and rushed to Hathras to milk the tragedy there.

Fortunately, UP is no longer ruled by Islamist sympathizers. Kappan and 3 of his co-conspirators were arrested. Funds received from Oman & Qatar were tracked by the ED and their trick was unmasked. 

Newslaundry seems to be on a spree targeting those who are reporting on Kappan and his accomplice’s anti-national activities. Sreedathan founded Indus Strolls and still manages it, but he is also an Associate Editor of Organiser. After joining Organiser, he recused himself from all editorial roles at Indus Scrolls.   

Akanksha started publishing articles in October arguing that Kappan’s legal battle is mainly built around the statement of Sreedathan. Her allegation that a 5000-page charge sheet was based on a couple of reports in Malayalam (that did not total 1000 words) is the kind of chicanery that would make NDTV, Akansha’s ex-employer, proud. Islamist hate messages and threats aimed at Sreedathan soon followed.  

Kappan was arrested in October 2020 for creating a ruckus at a toll booth. Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UP STF) found that Kappan had links to the PFI and started investigating. Among other incriminating evidence, the investigators went through Kappan’s confiscated laptop. 

It contained a draft of a defamation notice against Sreedathan and Indus Scrolls. Investigators contacted Sreedathan and requested him to translate whatever evidence he had against Kappan and like any law-abiding citizen, he did so.

In her article, Akanksha said that Kappan had filed a defamation case against Sreedathan. She contended that Sreedathan sharing evidence with the police because he wanted ‘revenge’ for this defamation case. That in itself is a gross distortion of facts and a grave mistake. Kappan never filed the case, he was planning to file. Anyway, if anyone accuses you of defaming them, who wouldn’t share all evidence at their disposal with police?

For all their might, the PFI never operates in the open. Their financial support for Kappan is pretty subtle. Though they employ the best criminal lawyers, it is never done publicly. If Kappan and his well-wisher’s story is to be believed, he lives on a meager salary and sleeps on the floor of an office associated with the PFI in Delhi. It raises a question as to who is funding these Supreme court lawyers (who charge lakhs per sitting) defending Kappan and filing defamation cases.

By publishing such hit jobs, Newslaundry has shown it is part of a narrative-building team working for the Islamist cause. Sreedathan asks that if her story were true, then why did the courts not grant bail to Kappan citing ‘flimsy evidence’? 

Kappan, while working for the now-defunct Thejas newspaper, visited foreign countries and stayed there for many months. He arranged and participated in workshops that had principally one agenda. Create communal disturbances and riots. The aim of the Hathras trip too was the same. 

What followed is the arrest of his Delhi roommate Anshad Badruddin, a martial arts trainer and Firoz Khan, an expert bomb maker. They were arrested from a train and were carrying explosives. 

Kappan’s detention facilitated the arrest of Abdullah Danish, a terrorist associated with the banned extremist organization Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). 58-year-old Danish is an old convert to Islam who was on the run since 2001. He is an accused involved in several bomb blasts across the nation and Kappan was in constant contact with him. 

Another Patna-based Malayalam daily journalist faced similar threats from Islamists when he helped the UP STF in their investigation on Kappan and had to be given round-the-clock security by the police. Sreedathan said that fearing PFI revenge, other journalists are not coming forward to help the investigators. 

He asked, “If Kappan has no Islamist links, why are the Islamists are up in arms against some journalists who they think might have helped UP Police in their investigation.” Shady Kerala-based organizations like the controversy-ridden Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) too have entered to ‘fight’ Kappans case. The cash-strapped KUWJ seems to have found a sponsor to help them wriggle out of a financial mess that they find themselves embroiled in. 

Sreedathan added, “There is a pattern in all the pro-Kappan reportage in the media recently. Egged on by the defense lawyers, journalists cull out small portions of the charge sheet which they think is a weak point and blow them out of proportion to vilify police and influence public opinion.”

PFI is the same outfit whose political arm SDPI is accused of brutally murdering a young Hindu man Sanjith in front of his wife in Kerala on Monday. Sanjith’s his limbs were hacked off and he was stabbed 50 times, filling the potholed road with his blood.

This is the kind of organization and individuals linked to them that Akanksha Kumar and Newslaundry are defending. Newslaundry was launched by Madhu Trehan and others in 2012. Madhu Trehan is wife of the renowned cardio surgeon Dr. Naresh Trehan, a Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri awardee. She is also sister of India Today founder-publisher Aroon Purie, and has herself been the  founding editor of India Today and the TV Today Network.

With elites like these, does Hindu society need any enemies?