Malegaon: Malegaon blast case: Special court to hear all accused on October 3

MUMBAI: BJP leader and Bhopal MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur appeared before the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Monday as one of the seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
Pragya Thakur’s presence was part of the order given by the court to record statements of all seven accused under section 313 of the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code).
Ranjit Sangle, counsel for one of the accused, Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Shankaracharya, sought his exemption, citing religious rituals. The court issued a bailable warrant of Rs 5,000 against him and deferred the recording of his statements to October 3.
The other five accused present were Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.
The BJP MP, who arrived around 2 pm, almost two hours after several other accused, informed the special judge of her various health issues that delayed her arrival.
In a joint plea, all defence counsels requested a questionnaire copy to enable all accused to give their written answers as it would save the court’s valuable time.
J P Mishra, representing Sadhvi as her defence counsel, orally requested the special judge that her reporting time be extended in future.
Special public prosecutor for NIA Avinash Rasal, on the last date on September 14, informed special judge A K Lahoti that there were no more prosecution witnesses to examine. Therefore, the next step was to give all the accused a chance to respond to the questions posed by the judge from depositions.
On September 29, 2008, six people died, and over 100 were injured in a blast near a mosque in Malegaon, about 200 km from Mumbai.