Another Mulund triple blast convict gets bail

The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to Ateef Mulla, a convict in the 2002 Mulund triple blasts case. Meanwhile, another convict Saquib Nachan, withdrew his bail plea after the court said it is inclined to reject his application.

It may be recalled that the same bench has already granted bail to two other convicts, Gulam Khotal and Hasib Mulla, earlier this month.

The division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed granted bail to Mulla on a surety of Rs 1.5 lakh. The court has also asked the registry to ensure that his passport is already seized and other conditions include that he would appear before the special Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court on the first Monday of every month for the next two years and after that every first Monday of January and July till pending of his appeal against the conviction.

“We are not appreciating the evidence at this stage,” said Justice Oka. However, the bench took into consideration three aspects,

The first was that Mulla is sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and he has already spent three years and one month behind bars as under trial. Later he was on bail throughout the trial, and he did not violate any condition of bail.

The second aspect was that a panch witness during his cross-examination had accepted he did not enter the room from where arms were recovered. He accepted he was standing outside the room and had not witnessed what had transpired in the room. He said the police had later shown him arms, saying it had been recovered from the room.

The third facet is that a police officer who was part of the investigating team during his cross examination had said that his statement under section 161 of the CrPC was not recorded but when defence showed him a copy of his statement, he agreed that his statement was recorded. The defence said this statement is silent on the part of recovery of arms and hence it should be discarded. Considering all this, the court granted Mulla bail.