HC rejects bail plea of man who was arrested over IS links

CHENNAI: A division bench of Madras High Court dismissed a bail application of an Erode-based man who was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and arrested on charges of having links with the radical ISIS group.

“We are unable to persuade ourselves to hold that there are no prima facie materials against the appellant/accused for granting bail. The investigation is at an initial stage,” the bench comprising Justice PN Prakash and Justice RMT Teekaa Raman ruled.

The bench passed the direction on rejecting the bail appeal filed by Asif Musthaheen. The petitioner challenged the order of the principal sessions judge, Erode, rejecting bail to him.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that there is no reference to the articles that were seized from the accused and the police filed the case by relying upon the Google Translation of the Arabic messages into English, which were allegedly found in the mobile phone of the petitioner.

“Google themselves have given a disclaimer stating that the translation software is not a reliable one,” the police noted.

Recording the submissions that the mobile has also been sent to the Hi-Tech Lab in Trivandrum for unlocking and to ferret out the data, the judge noted that the usage of Google Translation at the threshold for the police to satisfy themselves about the activities of the accused cannot be faulted.

“We are unable to appreciate this submission because the arrest preceded the recovery. After the accused was arrested, his confession statement was recorded. Thereafter, seizures were affected,” the judges held.