Alan Shuhaib, Kerala student arrested under UAPA, hospitalised after suspected suicide bid

The police told South First that Shuhaib attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. His condition was stated to be critical.

Shuhaib was arrested along with his friend Twaha Fasal on 1 November, 2019, from Pantheerankavu in the Kozhikode district. He spent 10 months in jail before getting bail. The arrests of Shuhaib and Fasal, put the ruling CPI(M) under fire from various quarters.

After coming out on bail. Shuhaib resumed his law studies at Thalassery in Kannur.

Meanwhile, a special National Investigative Agency (NIA) court in Kochi that granted bail to the young men stated that mere affiliation to a prohibited group did not warrant prosecution.

The court further chastised the state government for indiscriminately employing the UAPA.

Also read: Growing UAPA cases in Kerala exposes CPI(M) double standards

The FIR

According to the FIR, Shuhaib and Fasal attempted to elude a police sub-inspector and his squad, who were combing the Kozhikode suburbs. The two were with a third young man, Melathil Usman, who fled on seeing the police party. Shuhaib and Fasal were detained and taken to the Pantheerankavu police station.

The prosecution claimed that they were caught with Maoist literature and pamphlets. According to the FIR, they were retrieved from Shuhaib’s shoulder bag and a red plastic folder which Fasal was carrying.

The NIA charged them under sections 38 and 39 of the UAPA (association with a terrorist organisation and supporting it with the intent to further its activities), as well as section 13 of the UAPA (punishment for unlawful activity) and Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (criminal conspiracy).

The NIA and the Kerala police alleged that Shuhaib and Fasal were members and supporters of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). After his release on bail, there were allegations that the CPI(M)’s student wing, the Students Federation of India (SFI), implicated Shuhaib in a bogus ragging case.

The plan was reportedly to get his bail cancelled and put him back in jail.

Shuhaib underwent mental agony until a university-appointed commission exonerated him of ragging charges and declared the case to be fabricated. Till recently, Shuhaib was using his social media account to tell the world of vilification campaigns being conducted against him by the CPI(M)’s cyber activists.

Fasal, a journalism diploma holder, also faced similar assaults from his former CPI(M) associates.

Also read: 2 Maoists held in Wayanad following gun battle with Kerala Police

‘Material evidence’

When the police searched Shuhaib’s shoulder bag before the arrest, they discovered a notice demanding the implementation of the Madhav Gadgil Committee Report on the Western Ghats, as well as several pamphlets condemning the alleged encounter killing of four suspected Maoists by the Kerala police inside Manjakketty forests in the Attappadi region of Palakkad, according to Shuhaib’s mother, Sabitha, a higher secondary teacher in government service.

Alan Shuhaib with his father after his release from jail in 2020. (Supplied)

Additionally, the bag contained printed pamphlets urging authorities to resolve the issue of tribal land alienation in Wayanad, as well as handwritten comments on growing social imbalances. The bag also had a copy of the Malayalam socio-cultural magazine, Maruvakku, a spiral notebook with notes in coded language, a pocket journal, and a letterpad with comments on the right to protest, according to the police.

Fasal’s folder contained printouts explaining the CPI (Maoists) Central Committee’s position on caste issues in India, as well as a copy of German Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg’s book, Organisational Democracy, Disagreements with Lenin.

On the night of their arrest, the police searched the residences of the two young men. When police escorted Fasal to his house, he raised pro-Maoist slogans.

The police seized 18 items from Fasal’s house, including a 2018 CPI(Maoist) publication titled Caste Issue in India, and a Maoist guidebook titled Enemies, Tactics, and Counter Tactics.’ The police also confiscated journalist Rahul Pundita’s book, Hello Bastar: The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement.

A book on former Naxalite leader Mundoor Ravunni, a pamphlet exhorting Indonesians to fight against its fascist rulers, a notebook with writings on Jammu and Kashmir, and another note highlighting the need for demolishing illegal apartment complexes in Maraud near Kochi were also seized.

The following day, the police went to Palayad near Thalassery and searched Shuhaib’s paying guest accommodation and seized several notebooks and a computer hard disk.

A forensic examination of the hard disk revealed video clips on the Kashmir issue, information on fake encounter killings of Maoists, Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and Kerala’s radical Islamic leader Abdul Nazar Mahdani.

Literature on the repealing of Article 370, socio-economic challenges affecting Kurds and Turks, and topics ranging from Marxism, Islam, and the Russian Revolution, too, were found in the hard disk.

The NIA took over the case on 16 December, 2019.

Meanwhile, the CPI(M) expelled the two men from its core membership and initiated a smear campaign against their alleged extremism. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who described the youths as active members of a Maoist group, supported the arrests.

Also read: Kerala court acquits 93-year-old activist ‘GROW’ Vasu

The court’s ruling

For months, the two teens’ families fought the legal battle with little support. Anil K Bhaskar, the judge of a special court in Kochi hearing the NIA cases, eventually released them on severe bail conditions. He particularly observed that the Kerala police had arrested them without a formal complaint, making it simpler for the NIA to take up the probe.

Alan with his mother Sabitha. Photo; supplied

The bail ruling stated that the students were not involved in any act of violence or terrorist activity jeopardising the safety or sovereignty of the nation. The verdict, which described the two teenagers as Maoist sympathisers, also stated that it could “never be proved that the accused’s movement and conduct were completely controlled by the proscribed organisation”.

The court also noted the missing pieces of evidence demonstrating that the accused were CPI (Maoist) cadres and that their activities were directed by the outlawed party, as claimed by the NIA.

The prosecution lacked a case that the accused were members of the banned organisation, according to the order, and the accusation of being members of the terrorist organisation was dropped from the chargesheet once the investigation was completed.

The judge observed that the oppression experienced by the weaker sections of society may be influencing and attracting several people towards the Maoist philosophy, even as he warned the accused that the “chance offered by the court for reformation shall not be mistaken as an opportunity to strengthen their bond with banned terrorist organisation and to be a part of it”.

The court remarked that the seizure of books on controversial topics illustrated the two youths’ curiosity and quest for knowledge, as well as their determination to reach out to books of opposing viewpoints. The court ruled that their reading choices did not aid or abet terrorism.

“Being a member of an organisation does not entail participation in terrorist activity. Mere association or support must not be interpreted as a clear intention to further terrorist activities,” the court said in the bail order.

The court ruled, about the youths’ stance on the Kashmir issue, that the right to demonstrate was constitutionally recognised. It said that expressing dissatisfaction over the government’s policies and decisions should not be regarded as sedition or incitement for secession. The majority of the materials taken from the two youngsters were likely to be found in the public domain, the court said.