India, April 30 -- The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Sharad Kalaskar, one of the two gunmen convicted in the 2013 murder of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in Pune, expressing doubts over the manner in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) secured his identification by witnesses.

A division bench of justices AS Gadkari and RR Bhosale suspended the life sentence imposed on Kalaskar by a Pune sessions court and granted him bail, observing that the prosecution's case relied heavily on unreliable witnesses. The court also took into account Kalaskar's long incarceration of over eight years.

Dabholkar, founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, was shot dead on August 20, 2013, during a morning wal...