After spending nearly 100 days in prison after being charged under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 (UAPA), a Muslim man was granted bail by the Madras High Court on August 26. It was joyful news for 31-year-old Sadam Hussain and his family members in Trichy as their three previous attempts to secure bail for him had been unsuccessful. Sadam Hussain and four others were arrested on charges that he had conspired to kill Kumaresan of Coimbatore on March 7, this year.
The Madras High Court observed that there were no reasonable grounds to believe that Sadam had conspired to kill a Hindu man who had opposed his son's conversion to Islam after he married a Muslim woman. Further, the court said that the allegations against Sadam did not fall under ‘terrorist act’ and there were no grounds for believing that the accusations were prima facie true. Justices S Vaidyanathan and AD Jagadish Chandira, while granting bail, said, “There was no complaint from any person and nobody was injured in this case. Therefore, in the opinion of this court, the provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act have been included only in order to deny/delay the appellant from getting bail from the court.”
Speaking to TNM, Jannathul Firdous, Sadam Hussain's sister, said the family members hoped that the Madras High Court could dismiss the entire case, as it was false. "As family members, it was not easy for us, as his name was associated with being a terrorist. The torment we faced is beyond words and his two children always asked about their dad," she said.
Explaining the circumstances of his arrest, she said, "On March 4, he was asked to visit the police station in Trichy. He called and said he would come home as soon as the inquiry was over. But he was taken to Chennai and Coimbatore. The police told him that he was arrested for petty cases. Nobody explained to him what kind of allegations were made against him. He was slapped with charges under UAPA and locked up in Gobichettipalayam prison with four other persons. They were isolated from others as the police wanted to depict them as terrorists. After March, I was able to see him only twice in prison," she said.
The prosecution had contended that on March 7, Sadam Hussain was wandering around the Indra Nagar area in Coimbatore to monitor the movement of Kumaresan, a resident. His allies Bakrudeen, Imran, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Ajay alias Ramveer were waiting at a distance for his signal to kill Kumaresan. Selvapuram Sub-Inspector P Silambarasan who was on vehicle checking drive noticed Sadam’s behaviour was suspicious and brought him to the police station for inquiry.
The police said that on being questioned, Sadam confessed that he and his allies were planning to murder Kumaresan, as he was preventing his son, who had married a Muslim woman, from converting to Islam. At the same time, the police also said that Sadam wanted the killing to be a warning for people who wanted to marry Muslims and convert them to Hinduism. The group, according to the police, wanted to commit the murder and flee to Uttar Pradesh. Based on his confession, the police arrested four others and seized three billhooks from them. The five accused were produced before Judicial Magistrate and they were remanded to judicial custody.
The police said that men from different parts of the state gathered in Coimbatore, after Bakrudeen, president of Chennai chapter of Indian Muslim Development Association (IMDA), received a call from Noor Nisha of Tiruvarur, to kill Kumaresan. According to the police, Kumaresan’s son Arunkumar was married to Noor Nisha's daughter Sahanaazmi and Kumaresan was opposed to Arunkumar converting to Islam. Police alleged that Nisha conspired to kill Kumaresan to pave the way for Arunkumar to convert to Islam. Noor Nisha was arrested on April 12, 2022 at Koothanallur in Tiruvarur. On April 20, 2022, all the accused in the case were charged under UAPA.
SMA Jinnah, Sadam's counsel, said that Sadam was part of IMDA which was a registered body. "A police officer from Trichy threatened him and told him to stop his social activism. But Sadam refused to do so. Later, the police illegally detained him and cooked up a story around him and charged him under UAPA sections," he said. Sadam's father wrote a letter to the Chief Minister Cell, the Minority Affairs Department, and the DGP office too. "But, the Tamil Nadu government went a step ahead and took it to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which refused to investigate, after scrutinising the entire case," he told TNM. "DMK says this government safeguards the rights of minorities. But the ground reality contradicts what it claims," Jinnah said.
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