The offence of “outraging modesty of woman” being a bailable offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), all the accused were let out on bail by a metropolitan court on Friday.

Metropolitan Magistrate Madhav Bondre granted bail to them on furnishing a surety of Rs 10,000.

While the prosecution had asked for judicial custody of the suspects for identification parade, the defence lawyer argued that the accused were not hardened criminals and would cooperate with the police whenever called for.
The arrested have been identified as Dinesh Bagaitkar, Sudhir Naikwade, Kunal Jadhav, Shobby D’Souza, Ajay Marathe, Vaibhav Marathe, Sandip Panchal, Manoj Panchal, Sandip Shukla, Derek Jadhav, Swapnil Mandare, Siddharth Singh, Amit Kapoor and Ravindra Shukla. They have been charged with outraging modesty of women, unlawful assembly, rioting, causing hurt and wrongful restraint.

Earlier, Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K L Prasad said that on the basis of the photographs, at least four of those arrested were certainly among those who molested the two women.

Fast-track court

While the Mumbai Police Commissioner D N Jadhav and his other colleagues continued to receive flak over their callous attitude and insensitive remarks, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil chaired a high-level meeting in the Mumbai police headquarters and announced that the molestation case would be referred to a fast-track court for expeditious trial.

The Friday meeting was attended by additional chief secretary (Home) Chitkala Zutshi and senior police officers, including police chief Jadhav.

This is the second case that the minister is being forced to send to the fast-track court.

The other one was the case of a woman who was raped by a state-owned bus conductor and driver in Thane.

‘Minor’ incident

Addressing the mediapersons, Patil censured the police chief for his insensitive remarks of terming molestation a “minor” incident and also for accusing the media of blowing the case out of proportion.

However Patil, who is in charge of the home department, said: “Those guilty shall be given severe punishment and without wasting any time, we will request the Bombay High Court for permission to set up a fast-track court.”

The maximum punishment in this case would be one-year jail term under the IPC. The Deputy Chief minister thought the punishment to be inadequate and said the state government “will propose to the Centre to take stringent action against those accused of molestation”.