A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Thursday acquitted all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, including former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit.
Special Judge AK Lahoti pronounced the verdict.
The Court passed the order after a lengthy trial in the case that spanned nearly 17 years. The blasts had killed six people and injured over 100 in Maharashtra’s Nashik district. The explosion occurred on September 29, 2008, at a Chowk in Malegaon. An improvised explosive device (IED) had been placed on an LML Freedom motorcycle in a locality with a large Muslim population during the month of Ramadan.
The accused were arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) within weeks of the bombing almost 17 years ago. One of these individuals was released from prison on bail in 2011; the other six remained behind bars for another eight years before they were given bail in 2017.
The Court observed that the prosecution failed to bring any ‘cogent evidence’ and therefore, the Court has to extend the benefit of doubt to all accused.
Terrorism has no religion but conviction cannot be based on moral grounds, the Court further said.
Regarding charges against Hindutva politician Sadhvi Pragya, the Court observed that the prosecution failed to prove that the bike on which the bomb was allegedly strapped ,belonged to her, Bar and Bench reported.
Serial number of the two-wheeler’s chasis was not completely recovered by the forensic experts and therefore, the prosecution failed to prove that the bike in fact belonged to her, the Court held.
Moreover, Thakur had become a sanyasi and had left all material things two years before the blast, the Judge further noted.
The Court also found that there was no evidence to prove that Lt. Col Purohit sourced RDX from Kashmir or that he assembled the bomb.
The case was initially investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which arrested 12 individuals in connection with the blast. Among those arrested were former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sudhakar Dwivedi. According to the ATS, the blast was allegedly part of a larger conspiracy involving the Hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat. The agency booked the accused under several stringent laws, including the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In 2010, the investigation was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which filed a supplementary chargesheet in 2016. The NIA recommended that the MCOCA charges be dropped and stated that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute some of the accused, including Pragya Thakur.
Despite this, in December 2017, the special court ruled that seven of the accused—Thakur, Purohit, Upadhyay, Kulkarni, Rahirkar, Chaturvedi, and Dwivedi—would still stand trial under the IPC, UAPA, and the Explosive Substances Act. The court further ordered that Rakesh Dhawde and Jagdish Mhatre be tried separately under the Arms Act. Three other individuals were discharged based on the NIA’s submission that there was no evidence against them.
The trial formally commenced in December 2018. Over the course of the proceedings, the prosecution presented testimony from 323 witnesses, 34 of whom turned hostile. In addition, more than 30 witnesses passed away before they could be examined by the court. Notably, one of the accused, Sudhakar Dwivedi, contended that no blast had taken place at all, which led the prosecution to call over 100 victims and injured individuals to testify in order to refute that claim.
Final arguments in the case concluded in April 2024, and the special NIA court reserved its judgment on April 19.
 court on Thursday acquitted all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, including former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit.){kind=link}