Aurangabad: The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has granted bail to a 19-year-old murder accused, citing serious contradictions in the statements of eyewitnesses.While granting bail to the the 19-year-old, who is a transgender and main accused in the case, Justice N W Sambre ruled: "It could be prima facie inferred that a doubt is created whether Shakuntala (victim's widow) is an eyewitness to the incident or not."The Bhusawal police in Jalgaon district had arrested the transgender Akash alias Ashwini Shravan Baviskar and eight of his relatives on the charges of unlawful assembly and murder of Chandansingh Rajput (40) on the night of September 23, 2016 using a sword, pipes and sticks.Rajput and his wife, who lived Bhusawal, had been arrested in 2014 on the charges of murdering Pankaj Adakmol, a relative of the nine accused. They were in jail for 16 months during the trial and were acquitted. Soon after their release, they settled in Nashik. Police have said in the chargesheet that it was a revenge attack by the transgender and his relatives.As per the complaint lodged by Rajput's widow, Shakuntala, she along with her husband reached Bhusawal from Nashik a day prior to the incident to collect rent from their tenants, when the nine accused attacked Rajput, resulting in his death.Lawyer Naseem Shaikh, representing the main accused, argued that the weapon used in the crime was not recovered from the applicant. In addition to this, the clothes of the deceased that were recovered from Akash did not have bloodstains.The lawyer also pointed out that apart from this, the statements of the two eyewitnesses — Javed Shah and Divesh Pandit — have alleged specific role of another accused Santosh and the transgender. "Pandit, however, said that Akash used a stick in commission of the crime in question and not a sword."Shaikh said the complainant's supplementary statement came to be recorded on October 16, 2016, wherein she was assaulted by one Shrikant Surwade while Akash is alleged to have been present at the time of commission of the offence, as is apparent from the first information report. The woman gave contradictory statement that came to be recorded on October 24, 2016, he added.

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