By IANS,
Patna : Jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) parliamentarian Mohammad Shahabuddin was granted bail by a court here Wednesday in a case related to illegal possession of arms in March 2001.
A division bench of the Patna High Court granted bail to Shahabuddin, but the MP will remain in Siwan jail as he is serving a life term there, a court official said.
A case was filed against him under the Arms Act at the Hussainganj police station in Siwan in 2001 for possessing an AK-47 rifle and a hand grenade. The police had found sophisticated firearms, including hand grenades and AK-46 rifles, from Shahabuddin’s ancestral house in Pratappur in Siwan district.
Last year, a special court inside the Siwan jail framed charges after hearing the case.
A Lok Sabha member from Siwan since 1996, Shahabuddin is involved in over 40 criminal cases, including those of murder, abduction and possession of illegal arms. He has been convicted in four cases till date.
The RJD leader was convicted for the first time in March 2007, for his role in an attack on the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) office in Siwan in 1998.
In May 2007, a special court sentenced him to life imprisonment for kidnapping and murder of Chhote Lal Gupta, a CPI-ML worker, in 1999.
In August 2007, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail for attacking then Siwan superintendent of police S.K. Singhal in 1996.