Mumbai: Accused of three murders, Vijay Palande, has made an interim bail plea before the sessions court on the grounds of the Coronavirus pandemic.
His bail plea filed through advocate Prashant Pandey stated that in Taloja jail where he is lodged, there is an outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic and the 47-year-old is prone to illness due to his age. He has been in custody since April 2012. The plea stated that his incarceration during the trial will take time which amounts to an unwarranted pre-trial sentence.
“The jails are overcrowded and it is impossible to maintain social distancing,” said advocate Pandey, this too being one of the grounds seeking temporary bail. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam is appearing for the crime branch in the case.
Palande was convicted in 2002 for the murder of Swaraj Ranjan Das and escaped while on parole the following year.
He was arrested in April 2012 for being the alleged mastermind in the murder of senior citizen and Delhi-businessman Arun Tikku in his residence in Oshiwara. Tikku is also the father of actor Anuj Tikku. The motive behind the murder is allegedly the 1500 sq. ft. flat in the name of his son Anuj, where the murder took place. The senior Tikku was apparently a hurdle in letting Palande grab the flat.
During the investigation of Arun Tikku murder case, Palande is said to have confessed to killing a month earlier, 28-year-old aspiring film producer Karan Kakkad in his Lokhandwala residence. Palande, along with accomplices are said to have chopped Kakkad’s body into pieces disposed of it in Kumbharli Ghat in Satara-Goa road. Money and some personal reasons were behind the murder.
The skull found with the decomposed body of Kakkad in the ghat did not belong to him. It is yet to be identified, resulting in another murder case against Palande.
