CHANDIGARH: Former Indian cricketer Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was on Tuesday refused interim bail in a poaching case registered against him and seven others in Haryana. Hearing the petition seeking pre-arrest bail, Justice Rajive Bhalla of the Punjab and Haryana high court at Chandigarh directed the Haryana government to produce the entire record pertaining to the illegal killing of a black buck and two wild rabbits, allegedly by Mr Pataudi and his associates. Setting Friday as the date of the next hearing on the cricketer’s pre-arrest bail petition, the court, however, refused to grant him bail for the interim period until Friday.

Meanwhile, a number of voluntary organisations, which have been seeking strict action against Mr Pataudi and the others accused of poaching, also engaged a lawyer to oppose his bail petition in the high court. Mr Pataudi’s lawyer, Mr Dinesh Mathur, argued in court that “no role had been assigned to Pataudi in the offence alleged”. He pointed out that the FIR filed by the Haryana police at Jhajjar town did not specify who committed the alleged offence and that all eight persons could not have killed the black buck.

But while these arguments will be considered by the court at the hearing on Friday, Mr Pataudi and six other suspects wanted in the poaching case remain in hiding while Haryana police squads continue their search for them.—By arrangement with The Asian Age