Nagpur: In a setback to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis close aid, Omprakash alias Munna Yadav, the sessions court rejected bail pleas of his two sons on Thursday.
Judge TS Bhalerao relied on the prosecution’s contention that charges on both accused—Karan alias Montu Yadav (22) and Arjun alias Chintu Yadav (19)—were very serious in nature and “they were known criminals”.
Both the accused earlier surrendered with the Dhantoli police station on December 30 after being on run for over two months. Their father Munna, also the chairman of Maharashtra State Construction Workers’ Welfare board, is still on run along with his younger brother Bala, ever since they attacked and seriously injured Mangal Yadav, his sister Manju, brothers — Papa and Gabbar Yadav, and others, on October 21 over a dispute on bursting firecrackers.
All of them were booked under Sections 324, 325, 147, 148 and 149 of IPC, besides 307. Even accused’s mother Tara alias Lakshmi, the BJP corporator from Ajni area, is named as an accused in the FIR, but she was granted an interim anticipatory bail by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court.
Earlier, a battery of lawyers led by former advocate general Sunil Manohar, appeared for both the accused contending that they surrendered unconditionally before the cops and cooperated with them. All the required material like weapons used in the crime was also recovered. Uday Dable, Praful Mohgaonkar and Nishant Singhania were other lawyers who represented the accused.
Public prosecutor Ram Anwane strongly opposed the bail plea arguing that if accused were released now, they may tamper with the evidence or threaten prosecution witnesses. He also argued that the probe into the incident is underway and other accused are still absconding.
Earlier, the siblings were sentenced to police custody remand (PCR) after they surrendered last month. Just couple of days back, they were remanded to magisterial custody.
The entire police machinery came under fire from the opposition Congress-NCP during assembly session for their miserable failure to nab Munna and his family members, even after two months of incident. Opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and NCP leaders Ajit Pawar and Jayant Patil launched a scathing attack on the CM for allegedly protecting the absconding goon. They demanded to immediately declare him as an absconder and dismiss him from the post of chairman of workers welfare board.
Vikhe-Patil in fact dropped a bombshell by claiming that Yadav was hiding in a farmhouse, about 22 kms away from city. He named BJP corporator Vicky Kukreja for having know-how of his hiding. He called on the police to arrest Kukreja and force him to spill the beans on Yadav’s whereabouts. He went ahead by asking the government to declare of Rs50,000 on Yadav’s head, and also stated that he would give a cheque of equal amount to anyone disclosing his Munna’s hideout.
