Hyderabad: Moulana Mohammad Abdul Qavi, a prominent Hyderabadi religious scholar, was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court, five months after he was arrested by Gujarat Police in New Delhi in connection with a 10-year-old case.
A division bench comprising Justice Anant Deve and Justice Manindra Pal granted him bail on surety of Rs50,000 (Dh3,032). The court also asked him to surrender his passport and appear before the Ahmedabad City crime branch once a month.
Qavi was named as a suspect in a 2003 criminal conspiracy case and has evaded arrest since. All the other suspects were arrested, produced in court and acquitted. He was reported as absconding even though he was available at his Madarsa in Hyderabad and also visited Gujarat many times.
The Gujarat Police arrested him at Delhi airport in March when he was on his way to Uttar Pradesh to attend a Muslim Personal Law Board meeting.
In July, additional principal judge of the anti-terrorist court in Ahmedabad, Geeta Gopi, rejected his bail petition. Later, his lawyers moved the bail petition in Gujarat High Court highlighting the fact that he was arrested on the basis of a secret witness who already changed his earlier statement.
Moreover, lawyers pointed out that the court already acquitted all the other suspects in the case, including two religious scholars from Hyderabad — Moulana Naseeruddin and Moulana Ashraf Ali.
Detective Crime Branch of Ahmedabad Police opposed the bail granted to Qavi saying he was facing serious charges of working for Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, having links with ISI and conspiring and waging war against the country. Police also charged that he sent Muslim youth to Pakistan for training to take revenge after the Godhra riots. Moulana Qavi strongly denied all the charges as baseless.
