The Delhi Police and Tihar Jail authorities worked in close coordination on Thursday to ensure a secret release of JNUSU president and sedition accused Kanhaiya Kumar from the prison after he was granted a six-month interim bail by High Court on Wednesday.
Sources said Mr. Kumar was escorted by three police vehicles. He would be dropped to a place of his choice, said a senior police officer soon after his release.
Police had beefed up security outside the three gates of Tihar Jail since afternoon. This was to confuse the media as well as any possible miscreants about the possible exit routes.
It turned out that that Mr. Kumar was taken out of jail premises through a residential colony for prison staff. He was then driven to Hari Nagar police station without the media getting even a sniff of the developments. From there, three police vehicles escorted him.
Heavy security arrangements were in place because of court orders as well as the threat perception on Mr. Kumar's release. He has already been assaulted, allegedly by a group of lawyers, at the Patiala House Court premises a few days ago.
Earlier, a court in New Delhi ordered release of the JNUSU president from the Tihar jail after he furnished bail bond of Rs. 10,000 in the sedition case, a day after he was granted six months’ interim bail by the Delhi High Court.
According to the sources, the magistrate accepted his bail bond and orderded his release from jail.
Sources said that he furnished a personal bond of Rs 10,000 and one surety of the like amount as directed by the High Court on Wednesday.
A faculty member of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Professor S.N. Malakar, stood surety for him.
Mr. Kumar was granted interim bail for six months by high court which had observed that FIR lodged in connection with an on-campus event that led to his arrest on sedition charge suggested it “is a case of raising anti—national slogans which do have the effect of threatening national integrity“.
He was arrested on February 12 in the case in which he and others, including two arrested JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, are accused of raising anti—India slogans during an event organised inside the JNU campus on February 9.
The two other students who were arrested are presently in judicial custody.
(with inputs from PTI)
