Uttar Pradesh police filed a 5,000 page chargesheet against Kerala Journalist Siddique Kappan, who was arrested in October last year while travelling from Delhi to report on the aftermath of the alleged gang-rape and subsequent death in a Delhi hospital of a Dalit woman from UP's Hathras.
Besides, Kappan, seven others, three of whom were arrested and the others arrested later, also face charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA for alleged conspiracy to create communal tension read a report in NDTV.
Siddiquie and three others were heading to Hathras to report on the alleged gang-rape of the woman who died later in hospital when they were arrested and charged under the anti-terror law. The UP Police said they acted on a tip about "suspicious people".
In the FIR filed by UP police under a section of the UAPA that deals with "raising funds for a terrorist act", Mr Kappan has been in the jail since the in Mathura.
"We have not yet received a copy of the chargesheet. It's about 5,000 pages. Once we officially get a copy, we will study it and decide our course of action," said defence lawyer Madhuvan Dutt Chaturvedi told reporters outside the court in Mathura.
The state administration's treatment of journalists and leaders who tried to visit Hathras, was widely criticised.
The Central Bureau Of Inestigation (CBI) later took over the case and filed a chargesheet against four accused. The trial is going on in a court in Hathras.
In December last year, the UP government told the Supreme Court that Mr Kappan claimed he was working as a journalist in a Kerala-based daily, but that newspaper shut down two years back.
