Zaid Vilatra, 20, and Abdel Basit Parihar, 23, have filed separate bail pleas before a sessions court, stating that they have been falsely framed in the case and that there was no recovery of contraband from them.
The magistrate court, where they had been produced earlier, had rejected their bail pleas and instead sent them to the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) custody. The pleas said that the magistrate court has erred in rejecting the bail pleas and subjecting them to NCB custody.
Both said that they have retracted their statements to the NCB, when they were produced before the magistrate and called the statements forcefully recorded and not voluntary.
They said that they are charged for offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act ,which are punishable by only upto one year imprisonment. These are bailable offences and so they are entitled to be released on bail.
The NCB had said that they had recovered around Rs. 9.5 lakhs in cash and foreign currency from Vilatra’s residence and that these were proceeds of sale of drugs. Vilatra’s plea said that having cash in a household occupied by a family is not considered as an offence under any law in India.
Apart from the retracted statement, there is no ‘iota of evidence to even remotely suggest’, Vilatra’s plea said, that the amount was a sale proceeds of contraband.
Vilatra had come to be arrested on September 2 on the disclosure of two other arrested accused from whom a small quantity of Ganja was seized. Parihar came to be arrested the following day on Vilatra’s statement that the former had received drugs from him on instructions of Showik.
