By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent
The trial of the Panayikkulam Independence Day seminar case finaly begun in the Kerala High Court on march 18. The appeal was moved in the HC against the NIA Court’s judgement which convicted two of the five accused to rigorous imprisonment of 14 years and the other three to 12 years.
The five convicted in the case are Shaduli, a software engineer; Razik A Raheem, a teacher and journalist; Shammas, an education consultant; Ansar Nadwi; and Nizamudheen a social activist. Shaduli and Razik were sentenced for 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 60,000, while the other three for 12 years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 55000 by Judge KM Balachandran of the NIA Court. All except Shaduli are presently at the Viyyur Central Prison in Thrissur in Kerala. Shaduli is lodged in the Bhopal jail as he is accused in some other cases too.
In the High Court, Adv VT Raghunath argued for the first and third accused. Lawyers TG Rajendran, KP Muhammed Shareef, S Shanavas and VS Saleem also argued for the accused. Senior counsel Raman Pilla was present for the second accused Razik. The trial is continuing before the Double Bench comprising of Judges Ashok Menon and KA Shafeeq.
The incident related to the case took place on Independence Day in 2006. A group of young men organised a seminar on ‘the role of Muslims in the Indian Freedom Struggle’ at the Happy Auditorium at Panayikkulam near Aluva town in Ernakulam. The programme was reportedly held in public with its own posters and notices distributed beforehand. The police who were standing near the auditorium came in after the seminar began, and took 18 people who were there into custody, though later 11 were set free. Five persons were arrested accusing them of holding a secret meeting and were released on bail by the Kerala High Court after two months.
It has been reported that the police had merely questioned the young men at the police station and were about to set them free when some BJP-RSS activists marched to the station with visual media coverage, which gave it a totally different angle. And one person who had attended the seminar got ready to be an approver for the police. Soon, stories began to come up in the various news media about the SIMI connection and terrorist links of the meeting and those who attended – the seminar was accused to be a secret meeting of the banned SIMI.
The investigation was carried out by the team under CI Babu Kumar, and charge sheet was filed in two years. When rumours came up in some newspapers that the then Aluva SP Abdul Wahab had helped the accused, the case was handed over to a Special Investigation Team led by Sasidharan, DySP, in September 2008 by the state Home Department. Thirteen more persons were arrested and charged. Rasheed Moulavi, imam at a Salafi masjid at Ottappalam, became an approver in favour of the police case. Sedition has been charged against Razik and Ansar, while the other three have been booked under UAPA.
The case registered by the Kerala police had only a charge of holding a meeting. No weapons or explosives were found, no act of violence was reported. Yet this was the first case that the NIA took up after it began functioning in Kerala in 2009. The NIA submitted its charge sheet in 2011. The trial began in the Kochi NIA court in 2014 July and took around one and half years to complete the nearly 100 trial days. A team of 8 lawyers led by former judge VT Raghunath advocated for the accused. The transformation of Rasheed Moulavi from accused to approver was confusing.
“The harsh punishment does not consider the high educational status and the absence of any criminal background of the accused as well as their real-life situations demanding their presence (at home), and this makes one lose hope in the judicial system”, writes AM Nadwi, secretary of the Minority Rights Watch which provides legal and other help to the accused, in a recent article.
“The human rights prioritised by the law are violated. (This will be) an alibi to cruelly hunt the thoughts and ideas the government is not interested in. This judgement clearly acknowledges the fears being raised about the UAPA”, the article adds about the NIA court judgement.