THE NATIONAL Investigation Agency (NIA) informed the special MCOCA court on Monday that it is likely to file the chargesheet in the Malegaon 2008 bomb blast case by the end of this month. Special Public Prosecutor Avinash Rasal, who represents the NIA, made this submission before Special Judge SD Tekale. The bomb blast in Malegaon town near Nashik on September 29, 2008 had killed four and injured 79. The case was first investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad led by Hemant Karkare. The ATS had achieved the initial breakthrough in the case by tracing the owner of the motorcycle on which the explosives were allegedly placed. [related-post] The accused in the case include Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt-Col Prasad Purohit, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey, Sameer Kulkarni, Rakesh Dhawade, Pravin Takalki, Sudhakar Chaturvedi. The case was taken over by the NIA in 2011. Recently, the Supreme Court stated that there was no evidence to charge the accused under MCOCA and directed the trial court to expeditiously decide on their bail pleas.
