Former JU student gets bail 5 days after arrest in Bengal minister convoy attack case
Defence says no progress in police probe; judge questions why relevant sections of IT act not slapped against accused
Though the guidelines had previously been circulated in March, the fresh circular was circulated across all departments, student and faculty associations, and uploaded to the university website. (File Photo) 
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A researcher and former Jadavpur University student, who was arrested in connection with the alleged attack on West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu’s convoy on the varsity campus in March this year, was granted bail in the case on Monday by a court in Alipore.
The accused, Hindol Majumdar, was arrested at the Delhi airport last Wednesday upon his return from Spain where he is currently studying, after a lookout circular was issued against him in the case. He has been accused of sending WhatsApp messages to former students in an attempt to instigate them to execute the attack.
On Monday, Majumdar was produced in the court after his police custody got over.
His lawyer Gopal Halder requested for bail, stating there was no progress in the police investigation. Majumdar, he argued, lives in Spain and was not physically present at the spot at the time of the incident and returned to India only to visit his parents.
The public prosecutor, however, opposed the bail plea, claiming that Majumdar’s release could hinder the ongoing investigation. The prosecutor referred to the detailed case diary, which contained information about Majumdar’s alleged WhatsApp messages. The prosecution also pleaded that Majumdar, if released, could tamper with evidence and influence witnesses.
Majumdar was named in an FIR registered at the Jadavpur police station on March 1 under Sections 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 118 (1) (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (2) (offence of mischief) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Sections 3, 4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and Section 9 of the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Act.
The prosecutor compared Majumdar’s alleged involvement to the attack on the American Centre in Kolkata in January 2022, where the mastermind Aftab Ansari, now serving a life sentence, planned the sabotage operation while sitting in Dubai.
The judge questioned why the prosecution did not slap relevant sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000, against the accused.
“In order to establish criminal conspiracy and book my client under relevant sections of the IT Act, the police required an ascertainment from the forensic sciences laboratory that those conversations happened from devices of the accused. Clearly, the police failed to establish that,” defence counsel Halder said.
Maintaining that Majumdar’s name did not appear in the FIR connected to the JU campus violence incident, Halder said the court had earlier allowed custody of the accused in connection with a separate case.
Meanwhile, former and current students of the varsity alongside teachers, researchers and non-teaching staff, led by the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA), took out a protest rally from the institution’s main campus on Monday afternoon, demanding immediate and unconditional release of Majumdar, who they designated as a “mass-movement worker”.
Earlier, Hindol’s father Chandan Majumdar, a retired JU professor, had said, “My son is not directly involved in any political party… Since this case involves a minister, the police had to show some action.”
— PTI inputs
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