New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday (September 18) granted bail to US citizen Matthew VanDyke in the National Investigation Agency (NIA)’s case against him as the authorities did not complete their probe within the six-month remand limit under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), news reports said.Special judge Prashant Sharma of the Rouse Avenue courts said that the reasoning in his order also applies to the six Ukrainian nationals who were arrested alongside VanDyke in March, and directed that they be supplied with copies of the decision so they can pursue their own bail applications, The Hindu reported.Agents of the NIA arrested VanDyke and the six Ukrainians – Petro Hurba, Taras Slyviak, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Marian Stefankiv, Maksym Honcharuk and Viktor Kaminskyi – in March, accusing them of entering Mizoram without a compulsory permit and crossing over to Myanmar to provide training to armed militants there.Though the NIA invoked the UAPA in its FIR against the seven men, it did not do so in its chargesheet filed with the court earlier this month, which only mentions the Immigration and Foreigners Act of 2005. News reports had cited the agency as saying it needed more time to verify the facts falling within the scope of the anti-terror law.Per the UAPA, the authorities can detain accused individuals for up to 180 days while they work to finish their investigation, failing which they are entitled to bail.“As such, [the] investigating agency cannot circumvent sec. 187(3) BNSS [which, in combination with section 43D of the UAPA, governs release during investigation] by filing incomplete chargesheet for the purpose of denying default bail to applicant/accused Matthew Aaron VanDyke,” judge Sharma said on Friday per Bar and Bench.Judge Sharma granted bail to VanDyke against a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and directed him to stay in Delhi, according to The Hindu. At the same time, the newspaper reported, the court will hear his application requesting to leave India on Tuesday.VanDyke is founder of Sons of Liberty International (SOLI), an outfit that aims to provide military training and supplies to forces fighting authoritarian regimes. At the time of his arrest he was known to have worked in Ukraine since 2022 and enlisted in the Ukrainian armed forces.SOLI has suggested that US ambassador to India Segio Gor ‘briefed’ secretary of state Marco Rubio and Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri about VanDyke’s condition during the American official’s Delhi visit in May. At the time VanDyke was on a liquids-only hunger strike alleging lack of medical care and denial of consular access.Asked about the claim that Gor discussed VanDyke with Rubio and Misri and if New Delhi had made the US officials any assurances, the external affairs ministry said earlier this month that the issue “is a legal matter and it will proceed as per the directions of the court”.Immediately after the men’s arrest, Ukraine had lodged a formal protest with India over the arrest of its six nationals and claimed that the NIA’s case appeared “orchestrated and politically motivated”.