India Supreme Court grants bail to Chisti, family in Pak happy

New Delhi, Apr 9 (PTI) Eighty-year-old ailing Pakistani scientist Mohammed Khalil Chisti, serving life term in an Ajmer jail in northwest Indian state of Rajasthan in a 20-year-old murder case, was today granted bail by the country's Supreme Court on humanitarian grounds. A microbiologist, Chisti got the reprieve from a bench of justices P Sathasivam and J Chelameswar considering his old age and the fact that he has been in India since 1992 after a murder case was lodged against him when he had come on a visit to Ajmer to see his ailing mother. He he then got embroiled in a dispute and, in the melee, one of his neighbours was shot dead while his nephew got injured. Born in Ajmer to a prosperous family of caretakers of the medieval Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti's shrine in the township, Chisti was studying in the area that became Pakistan with India's partition in 1947 on independence. He chose to stay on in Pakistan. "We are satisfied that a case is made out for enlargement on bail," the bench said while directing the release of Chisti from jail on the conditions and satisfaction of the fast-track court in Ajmer. The bench, which took a sympathetic view, also agreed to hear his plea to to go back to Karachi and asked him to file a separate application for it. The court asked Chisti not to leave Ajmer till further orders. Chisti was granted bail a day after his case was discussed between the authorities of the two countries during Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's visit to India. During today's hearing, the bench said if Chisti has not surrendered his passport, then he has to do so. The family of Chisti, expressed joy at the apex court order for his release on bail. An emotional Shoha, Chisti's daughter, told the media in Islamabad that the bail was "due to God" and efforts by countless Pakistanis and Indians. The family had last met Chishty when it had travelled to Rajasthan in December last year, she added. She said she and her sister Aamna had written to President Zardari on April 5, before he embarked on his private visit to India, to take up the case of their father with the Indian leadership. Meanwhile, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney too has welcomed the Supreme Court's decision and said his NGO would now speed up efforts to try and bring Chisti back to Pakistan. "On Wednesday, I will go to India to move a new application in the Supreme Court seeking permission for Chisti to come to Pakistan. My trust is ready to give all assurances regarding Chisti so that he can come to Pakistan and spend his remaining days with his family," Burney told PTI. After a prolonged trial that stretched for 18 years, Chisti was held guilty in the murder case and was awarded life sentence on January 31 last year by an Ajmer sessions court. He had earlier been also granted bail by the sessions court during the trial but was ordered not to leave Ajmer. He was re-arrested after his conviction to serve the sentence. Chisti, who suffers from heart, hearing and other ailments, had lived in his brother's poultry farm till his conviction. His case came to light when Justice Markandeya Katju, the then Supreme Court judge, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging that the Pakistani national be pardoned on humanitarian grounds. An eminent professor of virology in Karachi Medical College, Chisti holds a PhD from Edinburgh University. PTI