Mumbai Court Grants Bail To Man Accused Of Issuing Death Threat To NCP Chief Sharad Pawar On Social Media

A Mumbai Court yesterday granted bail to a Pune resident arrested for allegedly issuing a death threat to Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on social media.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate (Esplanade court) L S Padhen allowed the bail plea of the accused Sagar Barve, who works in the data feeding and analytics section of a private firm.

According to the complainant, he came across a post on social media on June 9, which threatened the NCP patriarch with a fate similar to anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, who was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, the prosecution said.

The post was on a page called "Rajkaran Maharashtra che" and the message was written by a profile name "Narmadabai Patwardhan". Assuming that the message was a death threat for Pawar, the complainant approached the police and an FIR was registered, it stated.

The crime branch, which was probing the case, later arrested the accused for his alleged involvement in issuing death threats, the prosecution said.

In the bail application filed through Advocate Dhrutiman Joshi, Barve claimed that he had been wrongly framed in the case.

The allegations attributed are to one Narmadabai Patwardan and no link has been established by the prosecution to the accused, directly of being the holder of that account or writing such a comment, the plea said.

The prosecution has also not produced any evidence to show that the said account is operated by the accused, it added.

With PTI Inputs