Thaindian News

Jaipur, Aug 25 (IANS) A court here Thursday granted bail to a retired policeman who is one of the 15 accused in the 2006 killing of a criminal in an alleged staged shootout being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The special CBI court granted bail to retired sub-inspector Munshi Lal after the arguments on farming of charges. It also discharged him of most of the charges slapped by the probe agency.

Two senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, including Additional Director General of Police Arvind Kumar Jain and Inspector General of Police A. Ponnuchami, along with 13 other Rajasthan policemen are accused of killing Dara Singh in an alleged staged shootout on the outskirts of Jaipur Oct 23, 2006.

“After hearing arguments from the prosecution as well as the defence to frame charges against the accused policemen, the special CBI court granted bail to retired sub-inspector Munshi Lal,” said counsel for Jain.

Munshi Lal was charged by the CBI with penal offences including murder, wrongful confinement, criminal conspiracy and abducting in order to murder. But the court discharged him of these charges.

Only the charge of making wrong entries in records was retained against him by the court.

The court, however, retained charges of murder, wrongful confinement, criminal conspiracy and abducting in order to murder against the other accused.

Apart from Ponnuchami, the CBI arrested nine other policemen - inspectors Nisar Khan, Naresh Sharma and Subhash Godara, sub-inspectors Satyanarayan Godara and Munshi Lal, assistant sub-inspector Surendra Singh, constables Jagraj and Bardi Prasad and driver Sardar Singh.

Five other policemen - Arvind Kumar Jain, Arsad Ali, Rajesh Chaudhary, Zulfikar and Arvind - are still on the run.