Mumbai:The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to 27-year-old Areeb Majeed in connection with a terrorism case, in which he was accused of having links with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
After spending more than six years in jail, Majeed was granted bail on stringent conditions by a division bench of Justices Sambhaji Shinde and Manish Pitale.The court said in its order that Majeed cannot be allowed to languish in jail when the trial in the case is proceeding at a snail's pace.
Majeed, a resident of Kalyan in neighbouring Thane, was arrested in November 2014 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on the grounds that as an active member of ISIL, he had executed several terror activities in Iraq and Syria and had returned to India only to cause terrorism.He was also accused of plotting to blow the plice headquarters in the city.
As per the NIA's case, Majeed had been to Iraq along with few other locals of Kalyan on a pilgrimage trip. However, they did not go to the pilgrimage points but instead indulged in terrorist activities with the ISIL.
Justice Shinde's bench was seized with NIA's plea challenging the special court's March 2020 order, by which Majeed's third bail application was allowed on merits.
The special court, after rejecting Majeed's bail plea twice on merits, had allowed it in March on the ground that out of the 49 witnesses examined so far by the prosecution, 12 have turned hostile and the others have not been sufficient enough to prove a prima facie case against him.