India, Aug. 14 -- A Chhota Shakeel aide serving a life sentence for his role in the 1999 attack on former Mumbai mayor Milind Vaidya, in which three people were killed, has been granted a three-month remission from the Bombay high court. The court held that Mohammed Zuber Kasam Shaikh could not be denied the special remission announced by the state government to mark Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary merely because of the gravity of his crime.

A division bench of Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Manjusha Deshpande said the state government's 2017 policy granting three months' special remission did not exclude convicts involved in grave offences.

Shaikh was arrested on June 2, 1999 in connection with the attempt on the li...