The Allahabad High Court recently denied bail to two alleged members of the banned radical organisation — the Popular Front of India — who were arrested by the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), Lucknow, in February last year.
Rejecting the criminal appeal filed by the accused, Ansad Badruddin and Firoz, the bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Renu Agarwal observed that the accused were unable to give any explanation for the recovery of contraband articles from their possession at the time of their arrest.
“It cannot be said that the involvement of the appellants in their nefarious designs could be ruled out,” the bench said.
According to the recovery memo, when the accused were arrested in Lucknow, a pistol, live cartridges, rods of high-quality explosive, explosive devices with battery, electronic detonator, and a diary written in Malayalam were found in their possession.
The state counsel informed the court that a diary written in the Malayalam was also recovered from the accused disclosing their aim, object, and ideology where ‘attack’, ‘burning’, ‘US’, ‘Ram Mandir’ were mentioned in code words.
Further the words ‘defense’, ‘enemy knows everything’, ‘we should prepare’, ‘Muslims are strong’, ‘the root of coming our area leader’, and ‘conspiracy’ were also written, the Additional Government Advocate (AGA) told the court.
The court was further apprised that the accused had a criminal history of five cases against them registered in Kerala.
In the present matter, the investigating agency has submitted charge sheet against the accused for the offence under Sections 120-B, 121-A I.P.C., Sections 13, 16, 18, 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Sections 3/4/5 of the Explosive Substance Act, 1908 and Sections 3/25 Arms Act, 1959.
The accused approached the high court against the order on June 24, 2022, of the trial court denying them bail. Their counsel alleged that the FIR lodged against them was based on a recovery memo which was a planted one.
He contended that since there were no independent or public witnesses to the recovery as all the 18 witnesses as per the charge sheet were witnesses of police, therefore, the recovery was false.
However, the state counsel submitted that the investigation agency had received a piece of information that the members of the PFI will meet at Lucknow Kukrail Picnic Spot tos plan murder of office holders of Hindu religious organisations as well blasts in their different programmes, thereafter, a Special Task Force (STF) was constituted which arrested the accused.
The court took into account the recovery, the criminal antecedents of the accused, and the fact that the trial is in progress, which is fixed for framing charges against the accused, and opined that a case for bail was not made out.
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