Former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kailash Murarka, who is an accused in the circulation of a CD with sexually explicit content, surrendered in a special court in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on Wednesday, PTI reported. Murarka was later released on bail by the court.
Murarka was expelled from the Chattisgarh unit of the party on Tuesday, a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation named him an accused in its chargesheet.
Murarka’s lawyer UB Pandey claimed that Murarka was not summoned by the CBI when the chargesheet was filed on Monday. After his client came to know through media reports that he was being dubbed an absconder, he decided to surrender, Pandey said.
Murarka rejected the charges against him as baseless. “I have full faith in the judicial process and whenever the court will direct, I will appear before it,” Murarka said. “I have told everything to the CBI. The charges against me are baseless and fabricated.”
The CBI special court granted him bail on a personal bond and surety of Rs 1 lakh each, Pandey said.
According to CBI’s chargesheet, Murarka and five other people were involved in a criminal conspiracy to make a morphed sex video of state minister Rajesh Munat and circulate it.
Murarka said Chhattisgarh Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel, an accused in the case, has nothing to do with the case and that he is “paak saaf” (completely clean). Baghel was sent to judicial custody after the chargesheet was filed, but a court granted him bail on Thursday.
The other accused in the case are senior journalist Vinod Verma, Bhilai-based businessman Vijay Bhatia, Vijay Pandya and Rinku Khanuja. Verma and Bhatia appeared in the special court on Monday and are out on bail. Pandya did not appear before the court on Monday, while Khanuja, a Raipur-based automobile dealer, committed suicide in June.
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