New Delhi: In what is being described by the opposition as the Modi government’s “Masood Azhar moment” and its succumbing to international pressure, seven foreign nationals arrested in March, against whom the National Investigation Agency (NIA) did not invoke terrorism charges in a chargesheet earlier this month, have been granted bail to visit their families in Europe and the United States for a month.The six Ukrainians and one US citizen were detained on March 13 and accused of running a training camp for ethnic armed rebels in India and Myanmar. They were charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).Congress leader Saral Patel wrote on X after the special NIA court released them on bail, “Masood Azhar moment by Narendra Modi govt.” He called the decision “complete surrender by Narendra [Modi] before foreign powers.”Masood Azhar and two others, held by the Indian government since 1994 in a case related to faked documents, including a forged passport used to enter India, were released in December 1999 after the hijacking of passenger flight IC-814. They were released by the Vajpayee government in exchange for passengers and crew aboard the plane. Azhar set up the Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist outfit in 2000, that subsequently carried out attacks in India.Azhar was, in 1999, associated with the Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Indian government had said around four days before the release. It also said, “The recent hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft is the most brazen terrorist attempt yet by the HUM to secure the release of its General Secretary Masood Azhar.”In a post on X, Congress MP and chairman of the AICC media and publicity department, Pavan Khera, described Matthew Aaron VanDyke, the US national among the arrested seven, as a “known mercenary who entered Mizoram without the requisite permit, crossed over into Myanmar, imparted weapons training to armed groups there, and then crossed back into our territory”.He said VanDyke had been “sent off to America as though he were a state guest”, while sharing a video of the US national outside Tihar Jail and another arrestee, reportedly from Ukraine, leaves in a car with diplomatic licence plates.Khera reminded of the deportation of hundreds of Indian nationals by the United States in handcuffs and on military planes.“The right to travel abroad is an extension of fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Constitution… which cannot be taken lightly…and a balance has to be struck,” said special judge Prashant Sharma of the court that hears NIA cases on Thursday (September 24), according to an Indian Express report.The court directed the accused to assist the investigation whenever required by the NIA, by appearing physically or through video conferencing, the Hindu reports. The publication said the central agency “did not elaborate on whether their physical presence in India would be required in the immediate future for the investigation”.Each of the Ukrainians has reportedly been granted bail on a cash bond of Rs 1 lakh and the court discharged them from the visa-related offences. Discharge implies that there was, in the court’s view, insufficient material to proceed with a trial against the accused. Further, the accused had sought six weeks in their home countries, which was reduced to one month in the order.The FIR in the case had referred to cross-border terrorism-related activities of the seven while they were in India and alleged that they were traveling to Myanmar for activities related to arms training. The agency also alleged that the accused had made disclosures concerning their “network” and were assembling equipment and planning an attack targeting a passenger aircraft in Myanmar, said the Hindu report.On March 14, they had been remanded to custody after being produced before a magistrate.The NIA filed a chargesheet in early September, six months after their arrest in a coordinated operation at different airports on March 13. In that document, all of them faced much milder charges, related to not holding proper visas and travel permits while they were in India.Since the NIA had excluded the UAPA from this chargesheet, the special NIA court granted the arrested men “default” bail. This is based on a legal provision that if the agency cannot file the terrorism-related charges within six months, the accused would be released on bail.The fact that bail was granted to Matthew Aaron VanDyke, on September 18, by the special court also entitled the Ukrainians – identified as Kaminskyi Viktor, Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian and Honcharuk Maksim – to bail on the principle of parity, said special judge Prashant Sharma.Reports earlier in September said the NIA had wanted to further investigate whether anti-terrorism laws applied in their case.“Further investigation under [Section] 193(9), BNSS, may be allowed to be continued in order to unearth all the aspects of the larger conspiracy in the instant case against the arrested accused persons and others in the instant case,” the chargesheet said, as per PTI’s report from September 8.It is unclear if this probe under the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita is underway. Section 193(9) allows investigative agencies to file supplementary charges after gathering fresh material not included in the final report (chargesheet).However, the charges it had laid out in the chargesheet could be “compounded” by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), which means no trial was required to settle the matter.The seven paid Rs 5.5 lakh each as a penalty to secure relief from the FRRO, said a report in the Times of India.The FRRO is the agency through which the Union government regulates the arrival, duration of stay and travel permits of international visitors and residents in India.“Applicant and co-accused persons have shown their willingness to join the investigation, as and when asked by NIA…Therefore, viewed from all possible legal and factual angles, I find merits in present application,” judge Sharma said, as per the Indian Express.Details of an FIR were reported by RT India, claiming that some of the armed groups the seven arrestees had supplied weapons and training in Myanmar were “also known to be supporting some proscribed Indian Insurgent Groups”.On March 17, Ukraine lodged a formal protest with India, with Ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk meeting MEA Secretary (West) Sibi George and handing over a note demanding the immediate release of the detained nationals and consular access to them.On March 19, Ukraine’s embassy in India questioned the basis of the NIA’s case against the six Ukrainians. It said that, going by media reports, the Russian side appeared to have provided the information that prompted the allegations against them.In a press release, the embassy had referred to “a possibly orchestrated and politically motivated nature of this case, as evidenced, in particular, by the facts known at this stage”.The embassy also invoked the joint statement issued following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine on August 23, 2024, in which the two sides had condemned terrorism in all its forms and called for international cooperation to combat it.“Proceeding from this shared position, Ukraine maintains that any allegation related to terrorism must be considered exclusively on the basis of verified facts, transparent procedures, and full intergovernmental cooperation,” the statement said.