'No religion can advocate violence': Pragya Thakur, all other accused acquitted in 2008 Malegaon blast case

On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and dozens injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle detonated near a mosque in Malegaon City, Nashik.

Mumbai: Observing that “terrorism has no religion”, a special court of the National Investigation Agency on Thursday acquitted all the seven accused in the September 2008 blast in Malegaon that gave birth to the political narrative of “Hindu terrorism” and “saffron terror” - changing the discourse of Indian politics.

Seventeen years after a powerful bomb ripped through the communally-sensitive town of Malegaon, NIA Court’s Special Judge Abhay Lahoti — for “lack of evidence” — acquitted former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur alias Swami Purnachetanand Giri, former Military Intelligence official Lt Col Prasad Purohit (Retd) and Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey alias Swami Amrutanand Devtirth, a self-proclaimed Shankaracharya, Maj Ramesh Upadhyaya (Retd), Sameer Kulkarni alias Chanakya Sameer, Ajay alias Raja Rahirkar, and Sudhakar Onkarnath Chaturvedi alias Chanakya Sudhakar.

While five others in the case were discharged in the case in 2017, two others Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, both residents of Indore and believed to have planted the bomb, are still absconding.

The Navratri-eve blast coinciding with the month of Ramzan just a couple days before Eid, on 29 September, 2008, had claimed the lives of six persons and injured 101 others at Malegaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra - nearly 300 kms away from Mumbai.

The investigations were transferred from the Nashik Rural Police to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra Police and later to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

There were a total 12 accused in the case of which five were discharged on 27 December 2017.

“No religion can advocate violence. The court cannot convict anyone merely on perception and moral evidence; there has to be cogent evidence,” Special Judge Lahoti observed.

"Upon comprehensive evaluation, the prosecution has failed to bring any cogent evidence and the evidence is riddled with inconsistencies," the judge noted.

“The prosecution has failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused conspired to execute the blast. There is no conclusive evidence linking them to the crime,” the court observed, adding that overall evidence doesn’t inspire confidence to prove the case against the accused, hence the court gave the benefit of the doubt to all the accused.

"Prosecution proved that a blast occurred in Malegaon but failed to prove that bomb was placed in that motorcycle," the judge noted, adding that the prosecution could not prove that the LML Freedom belonged to Pragya Singh and is no evidence of storing or assembling the explosives in Col Purohit's residence.

The trial in the case for offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code as the charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were dropped.

The court also directed the Maharashtra government to provide compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 to those injured in the incident.

The accused faced trial under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA and under IPC sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups) and sections of Arms Act and Explosives Act.

Initially, the probe was conducted by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) led by Special Inspector General of Police Hemant Karkare, who was killed during the 26/11 terror attack. The ATS had filed the charge-sheet in 2009 and thereafter a supplementary charge-sheet, however, later, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which filed another supplementary charge-sheet in 2016.

Case in a nutshell

• 323 prosecution witnesses appeared to give evidence

• 8 defence witnesses were examined

• 10,800 exhibits were submitted

• 404 articles were seized as part of the investigation

• The trial spanned five different Special Judges

• Written submissions running over 1,300 pages

Observations made by the court

• The bomb may have been put outside the motorcycle and not planted on it

• Prosecution failed to prove that LML Freedom belonged to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur

• Serial number of the two-wheeler's chassis was not completely recovered by the forensic experts

• There is no evidence to suggest that Lt Col Prasad Purohit made the bomb

• The witnesses and evidence are not sufficient and it cannot be relied upon fully

• Prosecution failed to prove conspiracy meetings of Bhopal and Faridabad

• Doubts raised over spot panchnama