Eight persons out of about four dozen who were arrested in connection with the attack on chief minister Hemant Soren’s carcade last month were on Thursday granted bail by the court of additional judicial commissioner Diwakar Pandey, close to a month after a police crackdown.

The court has asked each of them to furnish two bonds worth Rs 10,000 each.

Speaking with reporters after the hearing at a civil court, advocate Kirti Nayan appearing on behalf of the eight accused said, “We claimed that the arrests were based on political grounds and there were no specific proven allegations against our clients. Court agreed for bail on sureties.”

An unruly mob attacked the pilot vehicle of CM’s carcade at Ranchi’s Kishoreganj on January 4 during protests against the beheading of a young girl whose body was found from city outskirts in Ormanjhi on January 2. Ranchi police slapped FIRs against 72 named and several unnamed persons for the violent protests. While the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance government had blamed opposition BJP for orchestrating the attack on Soren, the saffron outfit had denied the allegations, terming the protests as a spontaneous reaction by angry residents over falling law and order in the state.

On January 7, Bhairav Singh, who was named as prime accused in connection to the carcade attack surrendered in Ranchi civil court while police arrested about 40 people following subsequent raids.

On January 14, police finally cracked the beheading case by arresting one Bilal Sheikh and his wife in connection to the murder which turned out to be an incident of an extramarital relationship.