The prime accused and four others in the Kodakara hawala money heist case have been granted bail by the Kerala High Court which had in July denied them the relief on the ground that several co-accused were at large and a lot of evidence was yet to be recovered.
In its latest order dated August 27, the high court said that all the 22 accused, including those who committed the robbery and those who hatched the conspiracy and shared the booty, "have been brought to book.
"A final report has been filed against 22 persons. All the 22 persons have been arrested also," the high court said.
Besides that 10 out of the 22 accused were granted bail on August 13 by the high court on the basis of filing of the final report by the police, Justice K Haripal said.
"The (high) court also found that even though it is stated that it was only a preliminary final report, overwhelming grounds were not urged for the continued detention of the accused persons. The very same reasoning are applicable here also," the judge said and added "these petitioners also can be released on bail".
With these observations, the high court granted bail to Rouf, Muhammed Ali, Raheem, Martin and Edwin T W subject to the condition that each of them shall execute a bond of Rs one lakh with two solvent sureties for the like sum to the satisfaction of the jurisdictional court.
The other bail conditions imposed by the high court include -- surrendering of their passports within 10 days of release on bail, not to contact or influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence, not to enter Thrissur revenue district except for the purpose of attending courts and to appear before the jurisdictional court/committal court as and when required.
The heist case was registered and a special team of Kerala police was constituted to investigate it after a complaint was filed by Shamjeer Samsudheen that on April 7, a gang had stopped his car on the Kodakara flyover in Thrissur district and looted Rs 25 lakh kept in the vehicle when he was on his way to Kochi from Kozhikode.
Though the complaint had stated that only Rs 25 lakh were stolen, the investigators later found that the actual amount could be about Rs 3.5 crore and it was a 'hawala' transaction.
Police filed charge sheet in Kodakara hawala money heist case
In July, Special Investigation Team probing the 'Kodakara hawala money heist case' filed a charge sheet in a local court against 22 people allegedly involved in the crime.
The charge sheet was filed in connection with the case of alleged heist of hawala money and conspiracy behind the action that occurred during the time of Assembly elections in April this year.
In the charge sheet running into 625 pages, the investigation team named 219 people including BJP state chief K Surendran as witnesses.
The SIT has alleged that the money was brought for the BJP during the elections and recommended a probe by the central agencies including Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and the Election Commission to trace the source of looted money.
The case was also related to allegations of hawala connections linked to some state leaders of the BJP.
Meanwhile, the BJP has accused the state's Left government of targeting Surendran in order to divert the attention from other cases faced by the state government.
The SIT investigated the case based on a complaint filed by Shamjeer Samsudheen that in the first week of April, a gang had stopped his car on the Kodakara flyover in Thrissur district and looted Rs 25 lakh kept in the vehicle when he was on his way to Kochi from Kozhikode.
(With inputs from PTI)
