Mumbai court grants bail to Pune resident accused of threatening NCP chief Sharad Pawar on social media

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A court in Mumbai granted bail on Tuesday to a Pune resident who was arrested for allegedly issuing a death threat to Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on social media. Sagar Barve, who works in the data feeding and analytics section of a private firm, was granted bail by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate L S Padhen at the Esplanade court. The detailed order regarding the bail was not yet available.

The prosecution stated that the complainant came across a post on social media on June 9, which threatened Sharad Pawar with a fate similar to anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, who was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013. The post was made on a page called "Rajkaran Maharashtra che" by a profile named "Narmadabai Patwardhan." Believing it to be a death threat against Pawar, the complainant approached the police, leading to the registration of an FIR.

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The crime branch, which was investigating the case, subsequently arrested Sagar Barve for his alleged involvement in issuing death threats. In his bail application, filed through advocate Dhrutiman Joshi, Barve claimed that he had been wrongly implicated in the case. The plea argued that there is no evidence linking Barve to the account in question or establishing that he wrote the threatening comment attributed to "Narmadabai Patwardhan."

The prosecution is yet to produce any evidence to prove that the accused operated the mentioned account or authored the comment, the plea further stated. (With inputs from PTI)