2 convicts in RTI activist Shehla Masood murder case get bail

The Madhya Pradesh High Court today granted bail to Zahida Pervez and Saba Farooqui, and suspended the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to them by the trial court in the RTI activist Shehla Masood murder case.

The sentence was suspended till the final disposal of appeals filed by them against their conviction.

Masood was shot dead in broad daylight outside her house in Bhopal on August 16, 2011.

On January 28 this year, the CBI court held prime accused Pervez (40), her friend Saba Farooqui (36), Saqib Ali alias `Danger' (42) and Tabish (31) guilty. The court awarded life sentence to the four, while granting pardon to Irfan (31), who had turned approver (prosecution witness) in the case.

Last month, the division bench of Justices S C Sharma and Virendra Singh had reserved its order after hearing the arguments on bail pleas of Pervez and Farooqui.

The bench today granted bail to the two women on a bond of Rs 40,000 each. Both are currently in jail in Ujjain district.

According to the CBI, Pervez, an interior designer who had developed close relations with former BJP MLA Dhruv Narayan Singh, hired contract killers to eliminate Shehla as she became jealous of the victim's growing closeness to him.

Farooqui was accused of being part of the conspiracy.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)