Antilia bomb scare case: NIA Court grants first bail to Naresh Gaur

A Mumbai Court on Saturday granted the first bail in the case pertaining to the Antilia bomb scare case and the subsequent murder of businessman Mansukhlal Hiren..The Special Court under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act granted bail to cricket bookie Naresh Gaur, who was accused of procuring SIM cards for prime accused Sachin Waze and co-accused encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma..Gaur was arrested in March 2021 and was remanded to judicial custody. His first bail application was rejected in August 2021 on the ground that the investigation was going on and the chargesheet was yet to be filed. In September 2021, the NIA filed its chargesheet in the case, after which Gaur filed the present default bail application. .Advocate Aniket Nikam, appearing for Gaur, argued that Waze never contacted his client, nor was there any exchange of phone calls between them. He stated that there was no evidence to show that Gaur was part of the conspiracy, and that NIA had also failed to establish how he was aware of the end objectives of the conspiracy. "Merely by providing SIM cards one cannot be said to be part of any conspiracy," Nikam stated. .Nikam also argued that Gaur was not aware of the purpose for which the SIM cards would be used. He was also not aware about the SUV or the businessman who was allegedly murdered, the Court was told. The chargesheet did not mention that Gaur was aware of the final objective of the act, it was contended. .For the above reasons, NIA had failed to make out the case of Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and the offences under the NIA Act alleged against Gaur, Nikam argued. He stated that Gaur had been falsely implicated as an accused and should have been arraigned as a witness. .NIA opposed the plea, claiming that Gaur was part of the larger conspiracy hatched by Waze to eliminate Hiren. Special Public Prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves argued that the recovery panchnama included a list of numbers which were purportedly handwritten by Gaur and that he had also mentioned "okay" against some of them. .After hearing the arguments for over two days, Special Judge AT Wankhede granted bail to Gaur on execution of bail bond of ₹50,000 with one or two sureties of the like amount. .[Read order]