Nalasopara arms case accused remanded to judicial custody

Mumbai: A special NIA court on Friday remanded Amol Kale, Ganesh Miskin and Amit Baddi to judicial custody in the Nalasopara arms recovery case. The ATS had sought further police custody of the trio but the court refused permission saying that custody was sought on the same grounds as earlier.

Although the ATS had requested special judge V.S. Padalkar to remand the accused to police custody, the judge observed that there were no strong grounds to extend the police custody of the accused.

The public prosecutor had argued that Kale was the main conspirator in the case. He was unemployed but was still has possession of firearms so the agency wanted to find out who helped him get these firearms. It was also argued that during interrogation, he said that he had visited Sendwa village in Madhya Pradesh but did not give the exact location so the investigating officer wanted to visit that place too in order to find out more links to the case. According to the police, the accused had social media accounts but hadn’t shared the passwords for the same and the police also wanted to find out the password as it would help the police investigate the case.

However, the judge observed that he was not inclined to extend police custody and remanded the accused to judicial custody. The ATS had arrested these Karnataka-based accused in connection with the recovery of arms and explosives from Nalasopara in suburban Mumbai last month. The accused were already in custody in Karnataka for their alleged links with the murder of rationalist Dr Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh.