Shahabuddin was granted bail due to delayed trial

The Patna high court granted bail to gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin because the Siwan police had made no progress in the case related to the murder of Rajiv Roshan, who had witnessed the killing of his two brothers Satish and Girish.

The court, before granting him bail on September 7, had said, “Finding no progress in the trial of the petitioner, he is directed to be released on bail.”

This will give further ammunition to the Opposition, who have been very critical of the state government after Mr Shahabuddin’s release from jail last Saturday. The Opposition said the government did not fight the case forcefully enough in court, paving the way for the RJD leader’s release after 11 years in jail.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had also pointed out that the “trial in most cases related to Shahabuddin has been pending in the Siwan court for more than three years because of the state government’s casual approach towards it.”

Rajiv Roshan was murdered in 2014, three days before he was to testify in court against Mr Shahabuiddin and his associates, who had allegedly kidnapped him and his two brothers. In his statement to the police, Roshan had mentioned that on August 16, 2004, his brothers Satish and Girish were dragged into a sugarcane field and was given an acid bath in the presence of Mr Shahabuddin while he witnessed the scene from nearby fields.

Shahabuddin, who was earlier declared a Type-A history sheeter (a person with a long record of serious crime) by the state police, has around 39 cases pending against him. In 2015, a Siwan court had held him guilty of murdering the two brothers and had convicted him to life imprisonment. However, after appealing the verdict at the high court, he was granted bail on March 2, 2016.

Besides being convicted of murdering the two brothers in 2004, Mr Shahabuddin has been held guilty in eight other cases.

Sources said that till November 2014, he had around 38 cases pending before magistrate and sessions courts in Siwan. They said his role in the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan, who was killed on May 13 in Siwan, was also being investigated.

On May 20, 2016, he was transferred to Bhagalpur central jail after his cell in a Siwan jail was raided in connection with the murder of Ranjan.