Two days after Newslaundry raised questions about the bizarre arrest of Barmer journalist by the Rajasthan police and his surrender in Patna SC/ST court, Durg Singh Rajpurohit has been granted bail. Ripping apart the claims made in the statement recorded in the court, Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar had published a report on Tuesday. In the report, the complainant, Rakesh Paswan, has been quoted as saying that he had never filed the FIR against Rajpurohit.

Raising doubts, both reports pointed out that neither Paswan had visited Rajasthan nor had the accused in the case visited Bihar before his arrest. The alleged assault had taken place in Patna, Bihar.

Newslaundry report had also pointed out that on the day of the alleged attack on Paswan, the scribe was in Barmer and not in Patna’s Digha area.

Bihar state government has already ordered a probe into the bizarre circumstances under which Rajpurohit was arrested from Barmer on August 18.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had ordered Patna Inspector General Hasnain Khan to conduct an administrative probe. The probe was aimed at finding out how the case was instituted against Rajpurohit.

On May 31, 2018, a complaint under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was filed in Patna’s special SC/ST court in Bihar. The complainant recorded his statement on June 2. The court issued an arrest warrant against the accused, “Durgesh Singh”, on August 16.

The Barmer police showed a proactive approach in the case and arrested the scribe on August 18, even though no police team from Bihar had approached them. Barmer SP Manish Agrawal had told Newslaundry that Rajpurohit had surrendered in front of the SC/ST court in Patna.

Rajpurohit surrendered in Patna SC/ST court on Tuesday. And his family members had put forward the bail application.

Today, the SC/ST court granted bail to the Barmer scribe. “We are thankful to Bihar and Rajasthan governments which acted on our complaints, especially CM Nitish Kumar that he ordered a probe into wrongful arrest of Durg. It is because of these interventions and the effort by the society that we got justice,” Rajpurohit’s brother Bhawani Singh Rajpurohit told Newslaundry. He said that the scribe will be released on Saturday.

Read Newslaundry’s story on holes in the arrest of Rajourohit here.