mumbai in a significant turn of events in the murder trial of audio king gulshan kumar sessions judge ml tahaliyani on thursday released on bail ten accused who were alleged to have been party to the conspiracy to kill kumar they were released on bail for want of evidence against them gulshan kumar was shot dead on august 12 1997 outside a temple in andheri on tuesday the judge had sought the opinion of special public prosecutor ujjwal nikam on releasing on bail the accused against whom there was no evidence mr tahaliyani had said that he had no choice but to do because of the absence of proof agreeing with the judge mr nikam submitted that since approver mohammed ali shaikh had turned hostile and the prosecution withdrawn his pardon charges of conspiracy against the accused could not be established he said they played a minor role in the crime and were involved mainly in the conspiracy some of the accused were alleged to have procured air tickets to dubai for some of their aides while the judge observed that the prosecution had fairly agreed to the release of the accused defence lawyer majeed memon said the accused should not be asked to pay a heavy bail bond the ten released on bail after almost four years in custody are javed kalia rafiq ansari wasim babu firoz khan fatima merchant fiyyaz chougule rafiq phadke adil khan jaffer sharif and imtiyaz dawood merchant most of them reportedly belong to the abu salem gang all of them were present in court the court directed the jail superintendent to verify if any of them was required for any other offence before releasing them while two were released on personal bond the rest were released on a bail bond of rs 3000 each only three persons sharp shooters rashid merchant and rauf raja merchant and approver mohammed ali shaikh are now in judicial custody the evidence in the case so far rested largely on shaikhs statement the main accused music producer nadeem saifee was also sought to be extradited on the basis of the approvers statement however the indian government lost the extradition case after the highest court of london held that the mumbai police had no grounds to support nadeems extradition lawyers view the grant of bail at this stage as an indication that evidence against the accused was not satisfactory and that the prosecution may find it difficult to establish the alleged conspiracy to kill the audio king