Bombay High Court grants bail to woman held in mob attack case

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The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to Nagubai Pawar, a woman arrested in connection with a mob attack that left a 29-year-old man dead and another grievously injured.

On August 12 last year, eight to 10 persons, including Pawar, armed with hockey sticks, choppers, bamboos and swords, allegedly attacked the deceased, Arif, and his friend, Armaan, at Malad East due to bad blood. After Arif succumbed to his injuries and Armaan was seriously wounded, a case was registered for the offence of murder at the Dindoshi police station, resulting in the arrest of Abhi Pawar, Hussain Khan, Margappa Pawar, Akash Pawar and Nagubai Pawar.

Advocate Anand Pande, who is representing Nagubai Pawar, stated that during the investigation, Armaan had made different statements and the role attributed to the accused in the statement registered immediately after filing the first information report was subsequently improvised. He claimed that this clearly showed an attempt by the complainants to wrongly rope in the woman in the case.

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The court was also told that the supplementary statements were recorded by the investigating officer after considerable delay.

On the other hand, public prosecutor Shrikant Gavand opposed the bail application on the grounds that the offence was highly serious in nature. He stated that the brutal death of one person and the grievous injury of another and as well as the role of Nagubai Pawar were clearly narrated by the complainant and the other witnesses and the active participation of the accused was established beyond the doubt.

Justice Bharati Dangre, while granting the bail, noted in her order that the role of the accused had surfaced on record through one eyewitness and supplementary statement of the complainant which was recorded six days after his discharge from the hospital
and 14 days after the incident and it was noted that there was "improvement in his version".

The court held that since the Investigation was completed and the charge sheet filed with the role of the accused already crystallized, the accused deserved to be granted bail.

8-10
The number of people who allegedly committed violence