Hindu activist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur on Monday applied for bail in the special MCOCA court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. She moved the court after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) decided to drop her name from the list of accused.
On May 13, in a major U-turn, the NIA decided not to name Sadhvi Pragya in its chargesheet in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case. The agency also dropped charges under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against her.
Twelve persons, including the Sadhvi and serving Indian Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Srikant Purohit, were arrested for allegedly carrying out a blast at Malegaon, a predominantly Muslim town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008, killing six persons and injuring 100.
The Malegaon blasts case was investigated by two teams of the NIA. The first team was led by IG Sanjeev Singh and the second team was led by IG GP Singh. The team led by Sanjeev Singh was on the verge of filing the chargesheet when the BJP-led NDA government came to power in May 2014.
After recording 164 statements of witnesses, the first team had reportedly reached a conclusion that Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Purohit were involved in the Malegaon blast conspiracy.
However, the second team led by GP re-recorded the 164 statements of the witnesses in which they said they were forced to implicate Thakur and Purohit. The witnesses also said that they wanted to record their statements afresh thereafter which they claimed they were not aware of any conspiracy.
It is on the basis of the statements by the second team that the NIA is likely to have reached the conclusion that the evidence against them is very thin.
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