Patna: Patna High Court Wednesday granted bail to the RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin, clearing the decks for his release from jail after 11 years.
The single judge bench of Justice Jitendra Mohan Sharma upheld Shahabuddin’s bail application in the case related to the murder of Rajiv Roshan, the prime witness in the chilling murder by acid bath of two brothers in Siwan in 2004.
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.