Mahakaleshwar Temple Extortion Case: Eight Accused, Including Temple Staff And Media Persons, Granted Bail; Four Still Absconding |
Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): Eight of the 10 accused arrested for extortion in the name of darshan at the Mahakaleshwar temple got bail on Monday. Two had got bail last Saturday. Four others accused in the case are still absconding.
The Mahakal police had registered a case against temple employees, outsourced employees, and media persons under Sections 318 (4) (cheating and fraud), 316 (2) (breach of trust), 316 (5) (breach of trust by public servants) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Accused Vinod Chouksey, Rakesh Shrivastava, Abhishek Bhargava, Rajkumar Singh, Rajendra Singh Sisodia, Jitendra Singh Panwar, Omprakash Mali, Ritesh Sharma, Umesh Pandey, and Karan Singh Pawar were arrested and sent to jail.
Police had presented challan against all the accused lodged in jail on March 21. Lawyer Virendra Sharma said that that all the accused presented their side before the court.
The police registered a case by checking mobiles
The police also did not have any complainant and had registered a case by checking mobiles, without filing an FIR, he said. On Monday, a local court granted bail to all but Pandey and Jitendra Singh who had earlier got bail from the Indore bench of the High Court.
Last Friday, the court rejected the anticipatory bail petition filed in the high court by absconding accused Deepak Mittal. The others still on the run are Ashish Sharma, Pankaj Sharma, and Vijendra Yadav.
