Journalists from several organisations on October 5 staged a protest outside the Press Club of India against the continued incarceration of journalist Siddique Kappan.

Kappan had been arrested while travelling to Hathras to cover the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl and has been in prison for the past year.

According to reports, the chargesheet filed in case states that Kappan did not write like a "responsible journalist" and that he wrote to "incite Muslims" and "sympathise with Maoists and communists".

The UP special task force (STF) has suggested that Kappan is affiliated with the Popular Front of India (PFI), a charge which journalists' unions in Kerala have categorically denied.

The demonstrators noted that the charges are meant to stifle press freedom and have demanded that they be quashed and Kappan be released.

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