Nagpur: Citing Covid-19 outbreak, two convicts of the 1998 bomb blast case have moved the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court for emergency parole. The petitioners Asgar Kadar Sheikh and Mohd Yakub Nagul prayed for release in view of amendment to the ‘Bombay Parole and Furlough Rules’ enabling prisoners to be released to contain the spread of the virus inside jails.
Both petitioners lodged in Nagpur Central Jail had applied to the Jail Superintendent for releasing them, but their applications were rejected on the ground that they are convicts in special acts.
The trial court in Mumbai on June 29, 2004, had convicted both Asgar Kadar Sheikh and Mohd Yakub Nagul along with others for carrying out five blasts at Kanjurmarg Station, near Virar Station, on railway tracks between Goregaon and Malad, near Santacruz Railway Station, and on Platform Number 2 at Kandivali Station between January 23 and February 27, 1998. The blasts had killed four persons and left 30 others injured.
The two convicts, through counsel Mir Nagman Ali, prayed the High Court for release in view of amendment to the ‘Bombay Parole and Furlough Rules’ enabling prisoners to be released during Covid time.
The High Court has issued notices to the government and other respondents
