Siliguri, April 30: The two American women caught earlier this month at the Bagdogra airport with bullets in their check-in baggage have been granted bail by a court here, ending their 16-day stay in jail.

Heather K. Bond and her mother Monica from Santa Barbara, California, will have to appear before the investigating officer of the case every fortnight, said their lawyer Abhaypada Chatterjee. Their passports and visas will be with police.

“It was excellent to hear from the lawyer that they have got the bail and would at least be out of jail now,” Heather’s boyfriend Sean McGaughey told The Telegraph over the phone from Santa Barbara.

Sean had earlier confessed that the ammunition belonged to him and had been inadvertently left in Heather’s backpack from an earlier trip the two had taken in the US.

The boyfriend added that he and Heather’s father Lawrence could not travel to India right away because of “certain constraints”. “We will, however, talk to the lawyers, people at the embassy and try to figure out when they (Heather and Monica) can return to the US,” he said.

Henry Jardine, the US Consul General in Calcutta, has been in Siliguri for the past three days.

A team of three lawyers comprising Chatterjee, Anmole Prasad and Milan Sarkar, today filed a criminal miscellaneous case petition at the court of the additional session’s judge, first court.

“Additional session’s judge, second court, P.K. Jha, was in charge of the first court and he granted our clients bail on certain conditions,” said Chatterjee.

The lawyers said Heather and Monica would have to pay Rs 2,000 each for the bail, while there would have to be four sureties.

“Their passports and visas would be with the police. The court has also instructed them to appear before the investigating officer of the Bagdogra Investigating Centre under Naxalbari police station once every fortnight. The hearing of the case would go on at the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court where it was first placed,” said Prasad.

The next hearing is on May 2. “So they will be staying in Siliguri for the next few days,” said Chatterjee.

The two women were arrested on April 14 after the security staff of Deccan found 11 bullets in one of their backpacks while scanning their registered baggage at the Bagdogra airport. Monica, a retired nurse, and Heather, an employee of California’s forest department, could not produce any document that allows them to carry ammunition.

It later emerged that the Americans had accidentally discovered the 9mm pistol clip when they were in Darjeeling, but decided to keep quiet about it.

The mother and daughter had come to India to scout for locations as Heather was “putting together a small effort to run a travel agency”, Lawrence had said earlier.