Bangalore, Jul 15: Nearly four years after his arrest, People's Democratic Party leader and an accused in the 2008 Bangalore serial blasts case, Abdul Nasser Ma'adani was released from the Bangalore Central Prison at Parappanna Agrahara after completing bond formalities around 8pm on Monday.
Ma'adani, who has been in the central prison since October 2010, was released after the Supreme Court granted him bail for one month on health grounds. Soon after his release, Ma'adani was taken to Soukhya International Health Centre at Whitefield here for treatment.
He is a diabetic and suffers from cardiac and renal ailments; he also suffers from partial visual impairment.
As soon as he was released, he was surrounded by family members, including wife Sufia, son Umar Mukthar and his supporters, and taken to the health centre amid tight police security. Though the city police would provide security during the bail period, he would not be in police custody.
Speaking to the media before he was wheeled into the hospital, Ma'adani claimed that he was innocent.
“I have done nothing wrong and have full faith in the judiciary,” he said, adding that the Supreme Court had granted him conditional bail to get treatment. “I was arrested during Ramadan and I have been released during Ramadan. I am thankful to god. I will obey the Supreme Court directions,” he added.
Though Ma'adani was granted parole five times to enable him to undergo treatment, it was with full police protection. He also attended his daughter's wedding in Kerala under police protection. This is the first time that Ma'adani has been on bail.
According to the police, though Ma'adani is not in police custody, a police team that is providing security will monitor his movements to ensure that he does not violate the bail conditions.
Wife moves NIA court
Meanwhile, an NIA court in Kochi will consider on Tuesday Ma'adani's wife Sufiya's plea to relax her bail conditions so that she can visit her husband in Bangalore. Sufiya has been named as 10th accused in a case of hijacking and setting blaze a Tamil Nadu RTC bus at Kalamassery in Ernakulam in September 2005.
The act was allegedly in protest against Ma'adani's continued detention in Coimbatore, in connection with the February 14, 1998 serial blasts there. He was later absolved and freed in 2007. Sufiya has been prohibited from travelling out of Ernakulam district without the permission of court, which granted her bail in 2009.
In a separate but related development, another Kochi court withdrew a warrant issued against Ma'adani after the apex court granted him bail. The case related to organizing a meeting of the banned Islamic Sevak Sangham at Anwarssery in December 1992.
In the warrant sent to the Bangalore jail, the court had ordered to produce Ma'adani before it by August 13 last year. The warrant had been lying unexecuted.
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