The Supreme Court upheld the bail of two Kerala students under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) while observing that mere association or support given to a terrorist organisation does not attract the stringent provisions of UAPA. The accused were charged for having Maoist links as they possessed certain materials relating to the programmes of CPI (Maoist). The court observed that the students are of formative age and might have been fascinated by what is propagated by CPI (Maoist). They were arrested on the grounds that they were in possession of documents supporting CPI (Maoist), attended meetings of CPI (Maoist), prepared cloth banners supporting secession of Kashmir from India. “At formative young age, the accused nos.1 and 2 might have been fascinated by what is propagated by CPI (Maoist).

Source: Hindustan Times October 30, 2021 07:06 UTC