HC grants 28-day furlough to jailed gangster Arun Gawli

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC), comprising justice ZA Haq and justice NB Suryawanshi, on Tuesday granted 28-day furlough to gangster Arun Gawli,

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC), comprising justice ZA Haq and justice NB Suryawanshi, on Tuesday granted 28-day furlough to gangster Arun Gawli, who is serving a life term in Nagpur Central Prison.

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Gawli,66, was granted parole in February this year for the marriage of his daughter in Mumbai. He was supposed to surrender on April 27, but following the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, the parole was extended by seven days on April 23. The parole was further extended for a week. Later, it was extended again to June 2, when he surrendered before the prison where he has been lodged since.

He then approached the Nagpur bench of the HC, seeking furlough in view of the growing number of Covid-19 cases in the Nagpur prison. Around 100 inmates and personnel, including five officers, tested positive for the coronavirus last week.

Gawli was active in the Mumbai underworld since the 1970s and was engaged in a bloody gang war with Dawood Ibrahim’s gang till the 1990s.

He was convicted in 2012 for the murder of Shiv Sena leader and corporator Kamlakar Jamsandekar and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1997, Gawli floated a political party, Akhil Bharatiya Sena, and was elected member of the Maharashtra legislative Assembly (MLA) in 2004. His wife, Asha, also led the party when Gawli was in jail, while his daughter, Geeta Gawli is a corporator from Byculla in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).