On Wednesday, the Telangana High Court granted conditional bail to the fifth juvenile accused, arrested in early June, for gang-raping a 16-year-old girl kidnapped from a pub in the Jubilee Hills area of Hyderabad. While granting bail to the son of the AIMIM MLA, Justice K Surender of Telangana High Court said that the mother of the accused shall furnish an undertaking that the accused will not repeat the offence.
Based on this and some other ‘conditions’, the MLA’s son, who is one of the six accused in the heinous case, was granted bail on Wednesday.
Notably, a day prior, four out of the five minors who were arrested, had been granted bail by the Nampally criminal court complex’s juvenile justice board. However, the sixth accuse Saduddin Malik is still in jail because his bail petition is pending before the High Court. 18-year-old Malik is the only adult accused in the case, and he is the prime accused in the case.
The court further said that the parents should ‘encourage him to pursue his studies and assure him that, upon bail, the juvenile will not be permitted to come into contact with the victim. Neither would he associate with any unknown criminal nor be exposed to any moral, physical or psychological danger, said the court.
The court added that the mother of the accused would need to report to the concerned District Probation Officer (DPO) on the first Monday of every month for a period of six months. The District Probation Officer, in turn, would require to keep strict vigilance on the activities of the MLA’s son and submit a monthly report to the board for the next six months.
The court added that in the event that the accused person’s parents relocate, they are required to inform the board and provide their new address. While granting bail, Justice K Surender further directed the parents of the accused to submit their son’s passport to the Juvenile Justice Board. In case the accused juvenile does not have a passport, the parents must file an affidavit in this regard, said the court.
After the High Court issued the directives, the juvenile accused was released from the Juvenile Welfare and Correctional Centre in Saidabad where he was lodged. With him, all five juvenile accused have been released after their bail pleas were accepted by the Juvenile Board and the High Court.
The five youngsters had filed separate bail requests with the juvenile board twice in June, but they both had been denied. On Tuesday, however, the four were granted bail by the Nampally criminal court complex on the provision of a Rs 5,000 surety, and the fifth was granted conditional bail on Wednesday by the High Court. The Nampally criminal court complex’s juvenile justice board while granting the bail had ordered the four to cooperate with the investigators and to appear in court whenever they are summoned.
Saduddin Malik, the prime accused in the case was arrested by the Police on June 3 and was housed in the Chanchalguda jail while the other minor accused were put in the custody of the juvenile board.
In this case, all the accused minors are between the ages of 16 and 18, with the son of the AIMIM MLA being just a month short of becoming 18. The police had charged the accused under sections 376-D (gang rape), 323 (causing harm), and 376 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code. A second charge was filed under the Information Technology Act for recording the rape and distributing the images and video.
It may be recalled that the Hyderabad police had on June 9, said that they will be pushing for the under-18 accused to be tried as adults so that they do not get lighter punishment on account of being juveniles. However, the four were granted bail on July 26 and the fifth, who was the prime accused in the case was granted bail on July 27, on a condition that ‘he will not repeat the offence’.
On 28th May 2022, a 17-year-old minor girl had gone to attend a party at the Amnesia and Insomnia Pub in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The party was hosted by two of her friends. Some other boys also had met her in the same pub, from where she was taken in a Mercedes car and allegedly gang-raped by the accused. The Mercedes car in which the girl left the pub belongs to a TRS leader and an Innova car in which the crime took place belonged to a Waqf Board functionary.
