Kochi: The high court has dismissed the bail petition of Ashraf Moulavi, a national functionary of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), who is accused in the 2022 murder of Palakkad-based RSS leader S K Sreenivasan and of conspiring to establish Islamic rule in India through terrorist activities.A bench of Justice Anil K Narendran and Justice S Muralee Krishna rejected the plea, noting that the 61-year-old appellant had been in custody for three years and 11 months but faced serious charges, including murder and offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Moulavi is the second accused in the murder of Srinivasan in Palakkad on April 16, 2022. He was arrested in Sept 2022. The prosecution alleged that the PFI, through its ‘reporter wing’, maintained target lists of Hindu leaders, imparted arms training to cadres and carried out murders to create terror.Previously, Moulavi had approached the Ernakulam NIA special court seeking bail. After the court dismissed his plea, he filed an appeal before the HC. While dismissing the appeal, the bench observed that Moulavi was also accused of encouraging youth to join ISIS and propagating its ideology. The evidence recovered included a pen drive containing lists of Hindu organisations, records of financial transactions linked to other murders and handwritten notes regarding the storage of weapons.The court rejected Moulavi’s contention that his arrest was illegal for want of written grounds of arrest. Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Pankaj Bansal case, the bench clarified that the requirement to furnish the grounds of arrest in writing applies only from Oct 2023. Since Moulavi was arrested in Sept 2022, before the ruling, oral communication of the grounds was held to be sufficient compliance with Article 22(1) of the Constitution.Rejecting his claim of parity with co-accused who had been granted bail, the court noted that Moulavi was allegedly the ‘kingpin’, while the others were merely ‘defence team’ members who did not directly participate in the crime. The court also rejected his claim that prolonged incarceration entitled him to bail, noting that the delay in the trial was not attributable to the prosecution and that two exclusive NIA courts had been established in Ernakulam to ensure a speedy trial.
