Shahabuddin out of jail after 11 years

Bhagalpur (Bihar):RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin today walked out of prison on bail after 11 years with much fanfare and praised party chief Lalu Prasad while making it clear that there was no love lost between him and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

“For me Lalu Prasad is the leader” and Nitish Kumar is the chief minister “circumstantially”, said the controversial leader, who has been a four-time MP from Siwan, as he emerged out of the Bhagalpur divisional jail and left in a convoy of three hundred vehicles for Siwan.

Shahabuddin, who is a member of RJD National Committee – the top decision making body of the party- and is known to be close to the RJD chief, said categorically that he never enjoyed good relations with Kumar.

Various pending cases against Shahabuddin were reopened and he was sent to jail after Kumar had assumed power in 2005.

He was, however, quick to add that it was the court which sent him to jail and the court again which ordered his release from the jail.

Shahabuddin had got final reprieve on Wednesday when Patna High Court granted him bail in a case of murder of a witness in the 2004 killing of two brothers in Siwan. He had got bail in nearly 12 other cases earlier.

Shahabuddin was accorded a grand reception by his supporters and RJD workers.

He was welcomed by RJD Lok Sabha MP from Bhagalpur, Shailesh Kumar alias Bulo Mandal, at Jehangir Chowk in Bhagalpur and by other supporters at Naughachia in the same district. .

Shahabuddin said for him Lalu Prasad is the leader and “We all are standing solidly behind him.”

He said after reaching Siwan he would meet the family of journalist Rajdeo Nandan, who was shot dead recently.

Shahabuddin’s close associate Laddan Mian is in jail in connection with the scribe’s murder and though the inquiry into it has so far not named the RJD strongman, he was shifted to Bhagalpur divisional jail from Siwan a little after the incident.

The Nitish Kumar government had recommended CBI probe into the murder on demand of the scribe’s family.

Asked by newsmen whether his prolonged jail term had harmed him politically, Shahabuddin said, “A little damage has happened.”

His wife Heena Sahab lost to Om Prakash Yadav of BJP in the last parliamentary election from Siwan in 2014.

Asked how he spent his time in jail, the RJD leader said he is an avid reader. “Out of four cartons I am taking back from jail, two are full of books which I read during my stay.”

To a question on senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi’s allegation that the Grand Secular Alliance government had paved way for his release as RJD is the major partner in it, Shahabuddin said, “There is no need to take Sushil Modi seriously.”

“During his early days in Bihar Assembly in the 1990s I remember he used to speak very incoherently leaving deskmen in trouble as to what actually he said. Now he speaks properly and is good in giving news to mediaperson by telling unsubstantiated facts,” he said.

Shahabuddin’s release a govt’s strategy: BJP

Patna: BJP today termed as “well planned strategy” of the Nitish Kumar government to ensure release of RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin from jail and said it would stage dharna across in Bihar on September 14 to protest against it.

“It is a managed bail. It is a government’s well planned strategy which cleared the way of Shahabuddin in securing bail,” senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said.

The Patna High Court on September 7 granted bail to former Siwan MP Shahbuddin in the murder case of two brothers of whom the elder one, Rajiv Roshan, was a witness in the killing of two brothers in 2004 in Siwan.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said the government could neither begin trial of Rajiv Roshan murder case within nine months as per the High Court’s direction, nor engaged top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin’s bail.

The Patna High Court had on February 3 directed the state government to conclude trial of the case preferably within nine months, Modi said quoting the court’s order, the copy of which was distributed among media persons.

If the state government wished to start trial, it could have done so via video-conferencing from Bhagalpur where Shahabuddin was lodged, he said.

But it did not begin trial through video-conferencing nor committed the case to Sessions court when Shahabuddin was in Siwan before being shifted to Bhagalpur jail.

“The government’s failure to start trial led to Shahabuddin getting bail,” Modi said while quoting the High Court’s September 7 order that “there is no progress in the trial and considering the period of detention, petitioner (Shahabuddin) is directed to be released on bail.”

The state government also did not engage any top lawyers to oppose Shahabuddin’s case as it had done in other major cases in the past, he said and named several cases and the lawyers the state had hired.

The government has powers to impose Crime Control Act on hardcore criminals if it feels that release of a particular person could disturb public order as it was done in the case of Independent MLA Anant Singh, Modi said.

On Shahabuddin’s statement that Nitish Kumar is a “Chief Minister of circumstances”, Modi said he was right as Kumar with less number of MLAs is the CM while RJD with more seats is the junior partner.

Shahabuddin probably meant to say that RJD could get the CM’s post in future, he said.

BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the party would protest Shahabuddin’s release across the state on September 14.

PTI