Jeddah: After the continuous follow up by India fraternity Forum, three out of four Mangalureans, who are in Jeddah jail under STC illegal Call Routing (Hundi) case are likely to be released within a month. After paying negotiated fine amount to STC, honourable judge Saad Al Garni, who is chairing the probe into this case has ordered the release of three prisoners. Accused Riyaz Bajpe, Fairoos Ullal and Nasir Bandar will be out from the jail as soon as release formalities are completed, a release from the IFF stated.

As per the complaint registered by STC telecom company in March 2003, eight Mangalureans had been implicated for allegedly passing and routing of illegal telephone calls and were sentenced by the court with 6.7 million Saudi Riyals fine and imprisonment.

The family members of these men had alleged that they had been made scapegoats for others’ wrongdoings as they were unable to communicate in Arabic or English language.

The release states that the IFF had formed an ad-hoc committee in the year 2010 to follow up the case. Since then it has been constantly in touch with Indian Consulate, Jeddah and had approached Indian businessmen and other NRI donors to support in raising the release fund imposed on the prisoners. Altaf Ullal took the responsibility to raise the required fund from the Indian community. He has been successful in approaching and convincing the donors to provide the financial support for three men who are likely to release next month.

IFF had appointed Lawyer Hamid Jameel to represent the accused in the court. The Forum has released other four prisoners charged with the same case previously.

According to the IFF, Lawyer Jameel has confirmed that the last accused Mohammed Shareef Kannur, is also expecting to be out from the jail soon.