New Delhi: Eight hundred and fifty days after he was arrested, a month after he was granted bail and a day after a courtroom signed orders to launch him, journalist Siddique Kappan walked free on Thursday, February 2.

“I’ll proceed my struggle towards draconian legal guidelines. They stored me in jail even after I bought bail. I don’t know who’s benefiting from my being in jail. These two years have been very robust, however I used to be by no means afraid,” Kappan advised NDTV after strolling out.

The Malayalam language journalist was arrested in October 2020 whereas on his option to report on the gang-rape case in Hathras of Uttar Pradesh, the place a Dalit teenager was allegedly gang-raped and injured by 4 ‘higher’ caste males. The younger lady died finally.

Kappan’s trials in jail – particularly as he sought life-saving therapy throughout the pandemic – had invoked stern statements from journalists’ our bodies and rights organisations the world over.

On September 9, 2022, the Supreme Court docket had granted him bail within the Illegal Actions Prevention Act (UAPA) case, saying that “each citizen has the best to free expression”. Nevertheless, he remained in jail in Lucknow within the cash laundering case, which was slapped towards him by the Enforcement Directorate in 2021. He bought bail on this case in late December, 2022.

In response to the Supreme Court docket’s order, the UP authorities had opposed his bail alleging that he has “deep hyperlinks” with the Common Entrance of India, which on the time of his arrest was not a banned organisation.

Kappan was booked underneath Sections 124A (sedition), 153A (for selling enmity between teams) and 295A (outraging non secular emotions) of the Indian Penal Code, Sections 14 and 17 of UAPA, Sections 65, 72 and 76 of the Info Know-how Act.