German bakery blast: Not possible to shift convict Himayat Baig out of Yerwada, authorities tell HC

Mumbai: Authority of Yerwada prison in Pune on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that it was not possible to shift Himayat Baig, the lone convict in the 2010 German Bakery blast case, to Arthur Road Central Prison in Mumbai.

Baig, sentenced to death, had earlier been lodged at the Arthur Road jail but was shifted to Yerwada last year as the High Court was yet to take up the hearing of his appeal.

Baig’s appeal against the death sentence is pending before the High Court.

Baig’s lawyer Mehmood Pracha has filed an application seeking transfer of his client back to Arthur Road, on the ground that he fears threat to his life in Yerwada.

Last week, the High Court had asked the Additional Director General of Police (prisons) to state whether shifting Baig to some other prison was possible.

Yerwada jail superintendent Yogesh Desai, in an affidavit filed today, said that Baig is safer in Yerwada jail because several gangsters and terror-accused are lodged in Arthur Road jail.

“The high security Mumbai Central Prison is already overburdened,” it said, adding that “there is hardly any scope for segregation of the prisoners who cannot be kept together”.

“Baig has been lodged at the high security cell (in Yerwada) where there is no danger to his life at all.”

Baig, who has been sentenced to death, claims in his plea that he too could meet the same fate as the co-accused Qateel Siddique who was murdered inside the Yerwada jail by some inmates in August 2012.

The court asked Baig’s lawyer to examine the affidavit and adjourned the hearing to 17 March.

On 13 February, 2010, a bomb exploded at German Bakery, an eatery in Pune’s Koregaon Park area, killing 17 persons including five foreigners and injuring 58.

PTI