The sessions court on Tuesday denied bail to the bodyguard of Mauris Noronha, whose pistol was used to gun down Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Abhishek Ghosalkar.
The police arrested Amarendra Mishra under the Arms Act, as Noronha, a local businessman and ‘social worker’, allegedly used his weapon to kill Ghosalkar during a Facebook Live! session in Borivali last month and later killed himself.
According to the police, Noronha had used a pistol for which Mishra held a licence.
Mishra was booked under section 29 (B) of the Arms Act, which deals with the offence of handing over a weapon to someone without ascertaining if the person is legally permitted to possess it.
Additional sessions judge Rajesh Sasne rejected the accused’s bail application.
The detailed order was not available as yet.
During the probe it was claimed that Mishra, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, had obtained the gun licence from Prayagraj, but failed to seek permissions from Mumbai police.
After he was remanded to judicial custody, Mishra’s lawyer, Shambhu Jha moved bail for him claiming he has been falsely implicated.
The plea was objected by Ghosalkar’s wife Tejasvee Gosalkar in an intervention filed by her. She alleged that there was a conspiracy hatched by Noronha and Mishra was part of it. She claimed that Mishra was not associated with any agency providing bodyguards nor was there any official record to show Mishra worked with Noronha. It was also alleged that Mishra had criminal cases registered against him at his native place in Prayagraj.
The plea was later on objected by public prosecutor Iqbal Yunus Solkar, who contended that the police was investigating the financial transactions between Mishra and Noronha whereby they need to check if Mishra received any financial benefit for handing the firearm to the deceased accused.
