Pune techie held for threatening Pawar granted bail

Mumbai: A metropolitan magistrate court on Tuesday granted bail to the 36-year-old Pune techie, Sagar Barve, who was arrested for allegedly threatening Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Facebook.

The police had failed to connect him with the Facebook account from which the threat had been issued to Pawar.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate L S Pradhan granted bail to Barve on furnishing a personal bond of ₹20,000 and one or two sureties of the same amount. The court also asked him to submit his passport to the local police and regularly attend the police station once a week.

Arguing for Barve, advocate Dhrutiman Joshi had told the court that the accused had no criminal background and was a respected citizen who works for a reputed software company. The lawyer claimed that the 36-year-old was framed.

The prosecution has applied 506(2) of the Indian Penal Code which is a non-bailable section, his lawyer said to the court, adding, “However, the penal sections provide punishment for less than 7 years imprisonment and therefore, it was the duty of the officer to serve him a notice under section 41 (A) of the Criminal Procedure Code.”

The lawyer added that the arrest was bad in law. The accused will not abscond as he has a house in Pune. There is nothing to recover from him and bail to him will not hamper investigations as the police have already recorded all the statements from him.

In June, Pawar, 82, allegedly received a message on Facebook that read, “He (Pawar) will meet the same fate as (Dr Narendra) Dabholkar soon”. Rationalist Dr Dabholkar was murdered in Pune in 2013 by suspected right-wing activists.

After the threat message, Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule along with a delegation of NCP leaders met Vivek Phansalkar, Mumbai police commissioner, and a case was registered in LT Marg police station. The case was later transferred to unit 2 of the Mumbai crime branch.

Upon investigation, it was revealed that the post was made from a Facebook account with the name Rajkaran Maharashtracha, which contained the profile name of Narmadabai Patvardhan.

“Later, the Mumbai crime branch found that Barve was using the said Facebook account and arrested him on June 11,” said a senior crime branch officer.