“Nitish is leader of circumstances, Lalu Yadav is my leader”
Anwarul Hoda/ PATNA
Four-time RJD MP Mohd. Shahbuddin was released from Bhagalpur Central Jail this morning. He was released after 11 years. The Patna High Court granted him bail.
After release from jail Mohammad Shahabuddin said: “Nitish is the leader of circumstances, and Lalu Yadav is my leader”.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday brushed off the comment+ made by RJD leader and Bihar strongman
Talking to media persons outside Ranchi airport on Saturday, Nitish dismissed Shahabuddin’s comments as “unimportant”. “What can I say about his comment? It is insignificant for me,” Nitish, who went to Jamshedpur by road to attend a meeting of Kurmi samaj, told media
Shahbuddin is facing around 35 cases of crime, including murder and attempt to murder.
Shahabuddin has already got bail from the high court in the case related to the murder of the brothers, Girish Raj and Satish Raj.
The RJD leader, who has been a four-term MP from Siwan, faces around 40 criminal cases lodged against him of which a dozen are in trial stage.
At present lodged in Bhagalpur central jail, Shahabuddin “will be now a free man”, said his counsel Y.V. Giri.
Shahabuddin has been in jail since November 2005 after he was arrested from his official MP’s residence in New Delhi by a joint team of Bihar and Delhi police. The process for the release of Shahabuddin will take three to four days, said legal sources.
Justice Sharma, who granted bail to Shahabuddin, had, on February 3 this year, rejected his bail application in the same case.
Shahabuddin was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2015 by a Siwan court in connection with the kidnapping-cum-murder of brothers Girish and Satish, who were doused in acid.
The case had hit the headlines in August 2004 when Girish, Satish and their third brother Rajiv Roshan – sons of Siwan businessman Chandra Keshwar Prasad – were picked up by the henchmen of Shahabuddin and taken to his native village Pratappur, where they were given an acid bath. Girish and Satish died. Rajiv, who witnessed the killings, however, managed to escape. Soon after the murder, the mother of the youths Kalawati Devi registered a case with the local police, charging Shahabuddin and his men with killing her sons.