Malegaon blast case: Pragya Thakur gets emotional while replying to questions about injuries of victims

BJP MP Pragya Thakur, a prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, got emotional on Tuesday while replying to questions as her statement was recorded by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here.

The trial court on Tuesday started recording the statements of Thakur and other six accused in the case under section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure under which an accused person gets an opportunity to explain circumstances appearing in the evidence against him or her.

Around 60 questions related to the testimonies of the doctors who had treated the injured and conducted autopsies after the blast in Malegaon were asked to the accused.

Thakur, seated in the witness box, got visibly emotional at one point and the proceedings were halted for ten minutes.

Her response to all the questions was 'I don't know.' Thakur, the Lok Sabha member from Bhopal, got uncomfortable when questions describing the injuries of the blast victims were put to her, her lawyers J P Mishra and Prashant Maggu told reporters later.

The recording of the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses in the case is over. Since the trial began in December 2018, as many as 323 prosecution witnesses were examined, and of them 34 turned hostile or did not support the prosecution case.

Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sameer Kulkarni are facing trial under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code (IPC).

All seven accused were present before special NIA court judge A K Lahoti for the recording of statements under section 313, which will continue on Wednesday.

Six people were killed and more than 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon in north Maharashtra, about 200 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.

The case was initially probed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before it was transferred to the NIA in 2011.