The Bombay HC upholds bail given to Areeb Majeed, a Kalyan resident facing UAPA charges for travelling to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS. Bail upheld as the accused had been incarcerated for more than six years as an undertrial. Majeed argued his case in person. 
HC: We have observed that Majeed is an educated person, who was completing his graduation in Civil Engineering when he left for Iraq at the age of 21 years. He categorically stated before us that as a 21-year-old, he was carried away and that he had committed a serious mistake,
.....for which he had already spent more than six years behind bars. In the past more than six years of his incarceration, Majeed has argued his case on his own before the NIA Court.
HC: He represented his own case before this Court as well as the NIA Court and we could find that he was presenting his case by maintaining decorum and in a proper manner.
HC: During the course of hearing, it transpired that his father is a doctor of Unani medicine and his sisters are also
doctors. His brother is an engineer.
doctors. His brother is an engineer.
HC: This shows that he comes from an educated family and that if stringent conditions are imposed upon him, with an undertaking to cooperate with the trial proceedings before the NIA Court, his release on bail may not be harmful to the society at large ....
...and it would not adversely affect the trial proceedings before the NIA Court.
It was the case of the NIA that Majeed along with three absconding accused persons had visited Iraq "ostensibly" for pilgrimage along with other persons, who were on pilgrimage but, the accused persons including Majeed never visited the sites of pilgrimage...
....and, instead, escaped into Iraq and Syria with the intention of indulging in "jihadi activities" by joining Islamic State for Iraq and Levant (ISIL). According to the NIA, the said accused persons including Majeed formed an unlawful association with an intention to promote..
...terrorism in Iraq, Syria and India. They also participated in terrorist activities in Syria and Iraq and they were likely to commit such acts in India also.
The respondent had allegedly returned to India with the intention of carrying out such terrorist acts in India, including blowing up the Police Headquarter at Mumbai.
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