Palakkad: The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Abdul Sathar, former secretary general of  Popular Front of India (PFI), in connection with the murder of RSS worker Sreenivasan in Palakkad, Kerala in September 2022.  In granting bail, the Court noted, “As far as the assassination of victim Srinivasan is concerned, there is no direct role attributed to the appellant.” Along with Sathar, the Court extended bail to two other accused, Yahiya Koya Thangal and Abdul Raoof C A, citing similar reasoning. The decision comes after the Kerala High Court had earlier rejected his bail application. 

The order was passed by a bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, who heard Sathar’s special leave petition. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the case, submitted that Sathar was not named in the main FIR but had engaged in recruiting cadres and organising arms training sessions during his tenure as PFI general secretary. The NIA also mentioned that a photograph of the murder victim was found on Sathar’s phone.

During the proceedings, the bench orally observed that subscribing to a particular ideology cannot alone justify incarceration. The Court also observed that the trial was unlikely to conclude soon. Justice Oka, however, questioned whether Sathar had any direct involvement in the murder or in other killings. The bench noted that no overt act was directly attributed to him and the allegations primarily related to protests in September 2022.
(With inputs from LiveLaw)