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Mohd Alam, cab driver accused in Hathras UAPA case, walks out of jail after 823 days ( Maktoob Media )

After over two years of being incarcerated in the Hathras conspiracy case, Mohammad Alam, 31, walked out of Lucknow jail on Thursday, 5 January, Advocate Sheeran Alavi confirmed to Maktoob.

Alam secured bail in the UAPA case in August last year and another bail in a money laundering case two months ago, paving way for his release. Lawyers said the unprecedented delay in his release was due to a delay in proceedings.

On 5 October 2020, Alam was arrested along with journalist Siddique Kappan and Muslim student activists Atikur Rahman and Masood Khan. He was driving others to Hathras to cover the rape and murder of the 19-year-old Dalit girl.

A bench of Allahabad High Court, while giving bail in the UAPA case, stated that no incriminating article or evidence was recovered from his possession, making him the first of the accused to receive bail but he was still not released.

His wife, Bushra Alam, 30, has repeatedly stated that Alam “has been kept in jail for over 2 years for nothing” and that he had not committed any crime.

In July last year, the Supreme Court came down on the UP government and Allahabad High Court for not taking prompt action to release on bail undertrial prisoners who have been languishing in jail for many years.

In November, SC also sought details of tribals in jail despite having received bail.

Advocate Saifan Shaikh told Maktoob, “The Supreme Court clearly states that once he/she permits the surety, he can be set free within the same day, but in UP, I don’t know which law they are following. I’m going to challenge this whole process.”

The Allahabad high court on 23 December also granted bail to Kappan in a money laundering case. In September, he also got bail in the UAPA case.

‘UP STF Deliberately Delayed the Process’

Shaikh stated that his release was “halted unnecessarily” and that they had given the sureties from their end, but the verification process has taken a long.

Every bail bond has a two-tier process. First is the personal verification by the STF/the investigative agency and the second one is of the property. One is by the agency and another by the tehsil office.

Alavi told Maktoob, “Alam’s family members and friends stood up for him as the surety from Rampur.  There were four sureties in total. Two in UAPA and two in PMLA case. Rs 1 lakh in UAPA and Rs 2 lakhs in ED case. But in UP, the STF, the tehsil verification will extend for days to check the surety and property. They only allow Indian posts, so that also took time. Then the concerned department gives the outward number, and the process goes on. At the most takes 10 days for the whole verification but in Alam’s case, they did not verify promptly in the stipulated time.”

Alavi stated that when the bail bonds were submitted and sent to Rampur, there was also a clerical error as some of them reached the wrong address and a few of the details were missing from the documents.

Hence, the lawyers filed an application for resending the bail bonds.

This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com . Read the full story here

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