FTII: Charge-sheet filed against 35 students

The city police on Monday filed a charge-sheet against 35 students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) for purportedly holding FTII director Prashant Pathrabe ‘hostage’ in his cabin for several hours in August 2015.

All were granted bail, while five had been given bail earlier, the remaining 30 were given regular bail on Monday.

“There are a total 35 students against whom the charge sheet has been filed. Five of them, arrested on the intervening night of August 18-19, had been released on bail earlier. Thirty students, including 12 who were out on anticipatory bail, were given regular bail,” Defence Counsel Shrikant Shivade said.

Shivade moved a bail plea for the 30 students in the court of first-class judicial magistrate SS Bangad, who granted bail to all of them on a personal bond of Rs 3,000 each. 

The Deccan Gymkhana police, probing the case, had filed the charge-sheet. The next hearing will be held on April 2, the prosecution said.

Last week, the police, after viewing the footage of Pathrabe’s alleged confinement, had issued fresh notices to 18 new students in connection with the case, in addition to the 17 named in the original FIR, which drew condemnatory responses from the FTII Students’ Association (FSA).

The police had launched a midnight crackdown, storming the FTII premises in August 2015 at the height of the students’ agitation against the appointment Gajendra Chauhan as FTII chairman.