IS sympathiser held in 2016 seeks bail

Mumbai: Mohammed Rais, an alleged ISIS sympathiser arrested in August 2016 from Parbhani, is seeking bail contending that a prima facie case against him is not made out and hence the NIA court can grant him bail using discretionary powers. The prosecution is yet to file reply on his plea.

Advocate Sharif Shaikh along with advocate Abdul Rahim Bukhari contended before the special NIA judge D.E. Kothalikar that there is no evidence against Rais that shows that prima facie a case under UAPA is made out against him and hence he is entitled for bail.

The lawyers argued that there is a restriction to grant bail under UAPA however, that restriction is curtailed when there is no prima facie case made out against an accused and the court can grant bail to accuse using its discretionary powers given under section 43(D).

According to applica-nt’s lawyer, the charges-heet has very weak evidence against Rais no incriminating recovery from him or at his stance and all the Forensic science laboratory (FSL) reports about his belongings are also clear. They have claimed that the on-ly evidence against him as per prosecution is that he is author of an oath of affiliation with ISIS but that oath has been recovered from another accused at the instance of some other co-accused.

They said that this letter and statements of few of his friends could be te-sted during the trial and hence there is no need to keep him behind bars. The prosecution is expe-cted to file its reply on Monday on this bail plea.

The prosecution case is that on July 14, Naser bin Yafai Chaus (31), a suspected ISIS operative, was arrested in Parbh-ani. He was allegedly in touch with another wanted accused, Farooque, based in Syria, and was trying to influence the youth through social networking sites using different handles and profiles.