Two more accused in Malegaon case get bail

Two more accused in the 2008 blast in the powerloom town of Malegaon – a self-proclaimed saint and a man who led to Lt Col Prasad Purohit – were on Tuesday granted bail by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court.

Sudhakar Dhar Diwedi alias Dayanand Pandey alias Swami Amrutanand Devtirth, a self-proclaimed Shankaracharya, resident of Jammu & Kashmir, and Sudhakar Onkarnath Chaturvedi alias Chanakya Sudhakar, a resident of Thane,  were granted bail.

Both of them are among the key conspirators of the Malegaon bombing.

t may be recalled earlier this year, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Sadhvi Pragyasingh Chandrapal Singh Thakur alias Swami Purnachetanandagiri while the Supreme Court had granted bail to Col Purohit, the Military Intelligence officer. They were among the key conspirators in the case.

The blast on September 29, 2006, at the Bhikku Chowk in the powerloom town of Malegaon in Nashik district, on the eve of Navratri, has claimed six lives and injured 101 others. Initially, the investigations were handled by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which the NIA later took over.

There are a total of 12 accused in the Malegaon case – of which nearly half of them had been granted bail by the special court.

After Col Purohit got bail, both Chaturvedi and Diwedi has filed bail applications on grounds of parity. Both men have to give one or two sureties, as well as personal bonds of Rs 5 lakhs.