Bengaluru riots: Ex-corporator Zakir gets bail from HC

Former Pulakeshinagar corporator Abdul Rakeeb Zakir, arrested in the East Bengaluru riots case, was granted bail by the High Court of Karnataka on Friday.

Justice John Michael Cunha granted Zakir bail on the conditions that he would cooperate in the investigation and would not leave the court’s jurisdiction without prior permission.

Zakir had approached the high court after the trial court denied him bail. He was named in the interim charge sheet on October 12, 2020.

The prosecution’s case is that Rakeeb was part of a conspiracy to torch the house of Pulakeshinagar MLA, R Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, on August 11, 2020. A mob had burnt Murthy’s residence after his nephew P Naveen Kumar uploaded an offensive Facebook post about Prophet Muhammad.

In his bail application, Zakir argued that there was no connection between the arson attack and a meeting he had attended three months earlier.