News Brief
2008 Malegaon Blast Case: Special NIA Court Acquits All Seven Accused Including Lieutenant Colonel Purohit And Sadhvi Pragya
2008 Malegaon bomb blast (Representative Image)
A special NIA court in Mumbai on Thursday (31 July) acquitted all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit, drawing the curtains on a legal battle that stretched over 17 years, reported Bar & Bench.
On 29 September 2008, an IED explosion on an LML Freedom motorcycle killed six people and injured over 100 in Malegaon in a Muslim locality.
Initially, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) investigated the incident and arrested 12 individuals, alleging that the conspiracy was linked to the organisation Abhinav Bharat.
Charges were pressed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In 2010, the probe was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which later recommended dropping MCOCA and stated there was insufficient evidence against some of the accused, including Thakur.
But by December 2017, the court ruled that seven accused — Thakur, Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sudhakar Dwivedi would stand trial under the IPC, UAPA, and the Explosive Substances Act.
Over the course of the trial, which formally began in December 2018, the prosecution examined 323 witnesses, though 34 turned hostile and more than 30 others died before they could testify.
"There is no evidence of storing or assembling the explosives in Shrikant Prasad Purohit's residence. No sketch of the spot was done by the investigation officer while doing the panchnama. No fingerprint, dump data or anything else was collected for the spot. The samples were contaminated, so the reports can’t be conclusive and are not reliable," the judgment stated.
On the question of UAPA charges, the court observed, "UAPA will not be invoked in this case as sanction was not taken as per rules. Both the sanction orders of the UAPA in the case are defective."
It further noted, "Abhinav Bharat organisation was used as a common reference by the prosecution. There is no evidence that the money of the Abhinav Bharat was used for terror activities."
The court also highlighted inconsistencies in medical records, reducing the official number of injured from 101 to 95.
Additionally, it found the bike allegedly used lacked a clear chassis number and that the prosecution "could not prove that it was in Sadhvi Pragya’s possession immediately before the blast."
