JOIN USPFI student wing leader remanded in judicial custody for a day
Campus Front of India leader Rauf Sheriff, brought here from Kerala on a production warrant for allegedly funding a journalist and three others for fuelling a stir after the death of gangrape victim of a Hathras village, was produced before a Mathura court on Sunday.
Arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in Kerala in December in a money laundering case, Sheriff was flown to Delhi from Ernakulam on a production warrant of a Mathura a court and brought here by road.
He was produced before duty magistrate Swati Singh, who remanded him in judicial custody for a day, Mathura’s District Government Counsel Shiv Ram Singh. “Accused Sheriff will be produced before Additional District and Sessions Judge Anil Kumar Pandey on Monday,” he said.
Sheriff’s counsel Madhuban Datt Chaturvedi opposed the duty magistrate’s decision to remand him in judicial custody arguing that there was absolutely no evidence against his client. He also questioned the duty magistrate’s jurisdiction to remand him in judicial custody.
The Mathura court had issued production warrant for Sheriff on UP STF’s charge that he was involved in funding Delhi-based Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan, allegedly a PFI activist, and his three associates to foment trouble after the death of a gangrape victim of a Hathras village.
Kappan and his alleged accomplices Atiqur Rahman, Alam and Masood were arrested by the UP police on October 5 when they were on their way to Hathras.
The four were arrested earlier on the apprehension of causing a breach of peace but were later slapped with stern charges of sedition and being involved in various terror offences. Sheriff is alleged to be a central leader of the Campus Front of India, the student wing of Popular Front of India, a radical outfit.