Supreme Court grants bail to former secretary general of banned PFI

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 21, granted bail to former secretary general of Kerala unit of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), Abdul Sathar, stating that a person cannot be jailed based on their ideology.

“You cannot put someone in jail for their ideology. This is the trend we find. It is because they have adopted a particular ideology, they are put in jail,” a bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan told the counsel appearing for the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Sathar was arrested in 2022 for his alleged involvement in the murder of the BJP OBC Morcha state secretary and an RSS worker, Ranjith Sreenivasan, in Palakkad.

Sreenivasan was killed on December 19, 2021, reportedly by members of PFI and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). His murder came hours after SDPI state secretary, KS Shan, was killed by BJP and RSS workers the previous night. On June 25, 2024, the Kerala High Court granted bail to 17 of the 26 accused PFI members in the case.

Although NIA’s investigations does not name Sathar as a direct link to Srinivasan’s murder, the central agency argued that he has 71 criminal cases on record and was involved in conducting recruitment and arms training.

Responding to the NIA, Sathar’s counsel informed the top court that the 71 cases were related to hartal incidents. The Kerala High Court had granted Sathar bail in this regard.