New Delhi: US national Matthew VanDyke and six Ukrainian nationals, in jail for the past six months in a case registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), have been allowed to return to their respective countries for a month, after a special NIA court here granted them permission Thursday.
They are to be released later Thursday evening.
The seven foreign nationals were arrested in March by the NIA on allegations of crossing into Myanmar to train ethnic armed groups in drone warfare against India. However, the agency did not invoke UAPA provisions against them in the chargesheet citing a lack of evidence to suggest that their acts affected India’s national interest or Indian nationals.
At the same time, the agency maintains that an investigation under the anti-terror law was still underway.
A special court here Thursday allowed all seven foreign nationals to return to their respective countries for a period of one month, against their request for six weeks.
The development comes a day after all six Ukrainian nationals—Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor—were granted default bail and discharged on immigration offences by the court. Earlier, the lone US national, Matthew VanDyke, was also granted default bail by the special court.
VanDyke, too, was discharged in the immigration offence Thursday.
Their period of return would commence on the date they board their respective flights, Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma observed, adding that they have to return after one month. The court also ordered the release of their passports.
Their counsel—Rohit Dandriyal and Rohit Gour for VanDyke, and Nitin Saluja for all six Ukrainian nationals—had approached the court for permission to return home to meet their families after they were granted bail.
As reported earlier by ThePrint, the Foreigners Registration Office (FRRO) had slapped a penalty of Rs 5.5 lakh on each of them; the offences under the Immigration Act were compounded by the FRRO.
The NIA’s team of counsels, comprising S.P.P. Rahul Tyagi, Jatin Khatri, and Amit Rohilla, has reiterated that further investigation into the terror charges is still underway.
On instructions from the NIA, Tyagi informed the court that the probe will take some time and sought its nod to secure undertakings from the accused to join the probe. Counsel for all the accused submitted to the court that they would furnish details such as residential addresses and phone numbers to the investigating officer (IO) to facilitate the probe.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: Why American, Ukrainian nationals arrested by NIA have escaped UAPA so far