New Delhi: Three women from Kerala who went to meet their family members lodged in a prison in Uttar Pradesh in a UAPA (Unlawful Atrocities Prevention Act) case were arrested on the charges of producing “fake” RT-PCR tests by the police. Family members back home in Kerala have denied the charges, The News Minute has reported.
The Uttar Pradesh prisons department has made it mandatory, from August onwards, for family members willing to meet prisoners to produce a negative RT-PCR test done 72 hours prior to the meeting. Although the women had carried the most updated test reports, according to family members in Kerala, they have still been arrested. As a result, the women could neither meet their loved ones lodged in jail nor safely return home. They were supposed to return to Kerala within two days.
The arrested women will be produced in court on Tuesday, October 5. The families are now trying to secure bail for them.
Background
Anshad Badruddin and Firoz, members of the Popular Front of India (PFI), have been in a prison in Uttar Pradesh since February. The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested them when they were on their way to Delhi on the charges that they were planning to carry bomb blasts in the state.
Both Anshad and Firoz were supposed to be produced before a court in connection with their case on September 24. A total of four women and five children from both families – including Anshad’s wife, mother and his seven-year-old son, and Firoz’s mother and wife – flew to Lucknow on September 23 to meet them at the court.
Although it was scheduled, Anshad and Firoz were not produced at the court on September 24, as a result, the family members could not meet them that day. Then they went to the prison, where Anshad and Firoz are lodged, to meet them on the next day, September 25. However, the police did not allow this either. So, they came back to the room where they were staying. Later that evening, police descended on the room and arrested three of the women, leaving behind Firoz’s wife with the children, according to Azhar, Anshad’s brother residing in Pathanamthitta’s Pandalam in Kerala, The News Minute reported.
Later when Anshad’s seven-year-old son cried for his mother, he too was moved to prison along with his mother. Only Firoz’s wife and four other children have been left behind.
According to Azhar, the visiting family members from Kerala got new RT-PCR tests done at a lab in Uttar Pradesh when their test reports from Kerala expired. “All four women did the tests from the same lab. How come the police found only three of them possessed fake certificates and decided to charge them?” asks Azhar.
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However, according to the police, a case has been booked against four women and an FIR (first information report) was filed at Gosaiganj police station based on the complaint of Ajay Kumar Karapal, the jailor of the prison where the two men are lodged.
In the FIR, the police claimed that the Ghaziabad lab, where the women got their tests done, had denied making any such reports, without mentioning the name of the lab. “In such a situation, where RT-PCR reports have been tried to be forged, the possibility of an incident or conspiracy cannot be ruled out,” the FIR added.
Family members back home in Kerala are still not aware where the women have been lodged. “We only know they are somewhere in Lucknow. There appears to be some foul play because after the women left the prison when they were told they can’t meet Anshad and Firoz, why did the police search for them later,” Azhar said.
Condemning the arrest of the women, Nasarudheen Elamaram, national secretary of the Popular Front of India, said, “This is a planned incident. The men were not presented in court as the police came to know that their families were visiting them there, although they claimed law and order issue. We have come to know that there was a direction from top police officials to initiate the arrest of the women. That is why the police came searching for the women in their room.”