THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A court in Kerala Wednesday released Sufia Ma’adani, wife of cleric-turned politician Abdunnasar Ma’adani, after spending a week in confinement.
She was arrested by the police last Thursday on charges of hijacking of a Tamil Nadu government bus at gunpoint and burning it to press for her husband’s release from jail in 2005. The court later remanded her in judicial custody for a fortnight and sent to jail. She was admitted to hospital the other day after she fell ill.
Sufia was granted bail by the Ernakulam District Judge accepting her counsel’s argument that police failed to produce any fresh evidence against her in the bus burning case and the detention was not justified.
The court also asked her to cooperate with the ongoing investigation, surrender her passport and not to leave the district until the trial is over. She was released on a personal guarantee of Rs 100,000 and surety of yow other persons for the same amount.
Ma’dani, who heads the pro-government People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had alleged that his wife was arraigned in the case as a result of a conspiracy hatched by the police and rival politicians.
He was to go on a fast-unto-death along with his children Salahudheen Ayoobi and Omar Mukhtar from Friday protesting the “unending persecution” of his family by the authorities and speedy investigation of allegations against him.
Ma’adani was acquitted in 2007 after spending a decade in Tamil Nadu jails as an under-trial for allegedly plotting the 1998 serial blasts in Coimbatore targeting senior politician LK Advani in which 58 people died.
Ma’adani said he would decide on his fast plan after consulting with his wife in the light of advice he received from well wishers against launching the stir on the Christmas day.
The Special Investigation Team probing the bus burning case had told the Kerala High Court Wednesday that Sufia was the master brain behind the bus burning and she was in constant touch with others involved in the acts of terror.
The SIT claims to have in their possession the ‘digital evidences’ to prove her involvement in the bus burning. She was also accused of contacting other defendants in the Coimbatore blasts besides people involved in other terror modules including a youth died in an encounter with security forces in Kashmir.
Ma’dani supported the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 2006 Assembly elections that the LDF swept and even fielded a common candidate in Ponnani in the parliamentary elections this year. The bonhomie however ended after the Left suffered a severe drubbing and the Communists put part of the blame on the alliance with Ma’adani.
