Kerala CM Vijayan Requests UP CM Adityanath To Ensure Expert Healthcare to Siddique Kappan

Additionally, 11 MPs from Kerala wrote to CJI Ramana seeking urgent hearing in the matter and issuance of necessary orders to shift Kappan from Mathura Medical College to AIIMS.

Siddique Kappan

New Delhi: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his intervention in shifting journalist Siddique Kappan to a super specialty hospital as he is facing severe health problems.

Earlier in the day, Kappan’s lawyer wrote to Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana seeking his immediate intervention to release Kappan from Mathura Medical College to Mathura Jail as he has tested COVID-19 positive and is in a critical condition. The letter was written on behalf of the wife Raihanth Kappan.

Saying that his “life is in extreme danger”, the letter stated that Kappan is “chained like an animal in a cot of Medical College Hospital, Mathura, without mobility, and he neither could take food, nor could go to the toilet for the last more than four days, and is very critical”.

If immediate corrective steps are not taken, it will result in his untimely death, the letter further said.

Also read: UP Police Chargesheets Siddique Kappan, 7 Others on Charges of Sedition, Conspiracy, Terror

Additionally, 11 members of parliament from Kerala wrote to CJI Ramana seeking urgent hearing in the matter and issuance of necessary orders to shift him from Mathura Medical College to AIIMS, LiveLaw reported.

Kappan, a freelance journalist who wrote for Malayalam-language news organisations, was arrested by the police in Uttar Pradesh on October 5 in Mathura under provisions of the UAPA and sedition for alleged criminal conspiracy to create societal unrest. He was going to Hathras to cover the death of the 19-year-old woman who had been allegedly gang-raped by four Thakur men.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists on April 20 moved a plea in Supreme Court seeking transfer of Kappan to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, citing medical emergency, LiveLaw had reported.

The plea said that Kappan had collapsed in the bathroom with serious injuries and later tested positive for COVID-19.

Despite listing it more that seven times, the Habeas Corpus petition seeking release of Kappan which was submitted on October 6, 2020 has been pending for six months, the letter said.

“It is most respectfully prayed to take immediate steps/pass necessary orders to release Siddique Kappan from the Medical College Hospital back to the Mathura Jail as interim relief, till the disposal of the mentioning  application filed on April 22, 2021,” the letter said.

This story has been updated with Kerala chief minister’s reaction on the Siddique Kappan matter.