2008 Malegaon blasts: Bike, Bhopal meet, statements; NIA arguments don’t hold water in court

Eight years later, in a supplementary chargesheet filed on May 13, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) claimed that no case was made out against her.

On Tuesday, the NIA, which has practically cast aside the ATS findings, was pulled up by the court for not doing its work.

WATCH VIDEO: Video Of NIA Officers Outside Charminar

Consider these:

* In the NIA chargesheet, a four-page evidence and analysis on Sadhvi Pragya was submitted to the court. The agency said the LML Freedom motorcycle used in the blast was registered in her name but was in the possession of absconding accused Ramchandra Kalsangra. The NIA said it had reassessed evidence put on record by the ATS by examining four witnesses. It claimed that all four said the motorcycle was with Kalsangra.

But the court observed that no new material had been brought on record by the NIA pertaining to the motorcycle: “…selling of motorcycle and having no concern with it though being registered owner is the defence of the applicant (Sadhvi Pragya) which she has to establish during trial… The investigating officer simply gave his findings on the basis of statements of witnesses which are already recorded by ATS.”

* The NIA had claimed that confessional statements of accused Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi and Rakesh Dhawde, which elaborate on Sadhvi Pragya’s role in the conspiracy, cannot be relied upon since MCOCA cannot be invoked in the case.

But the court observed that there is a precedent in a Supreme Court judgment which allows for confessional statements to be relied upon in such situations. The court said that while deciding her previous bail application, it had ruled that even excluding these statements “there is prima facie case against the applicant”.

* The NIA relied on re-recording of witness statements while giving a clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya. One witness had told the ATS that Sadhvi Pragya had participated in a Bhopal meeting and had offered to provide men to take revenge from Muslims. The NIA said that during his re-examination, the witness deposed that he had not attended any meeting in Bhopal. Another witness, who had mentioned a meeting between Kalsangra and Sadhvi Pragya where they discussed the former’s complicity in the blast and the low casualties, was not re-examined. The NIA, however, claimed that since he had filed a complaint against the ATS before an Indore court saying he had been detained and tortured, “there is every possibility” that he would retract from his earlier

The court observed that both ATS and NIA recorded statements of witnesses before a magistrate. “So far as this applicant is concerned except above (re-recording of statements), there is no other investigation done by IO (investigating officer) of NIA,” it said.

The court said though one of the witnesses retracted part of a statement where he had stated that Sadhvi Pragya had agreed at the Bhopal meeting to provide men for the blast, he had reiterated before the NIA that at that meeting, the issue of growing jihadi activities in Maharashtra was discussed.

“At this prima facie stage, without going to the question that which version of these witnesses is correct, safe conclusion can be drawn on the basis of statement of PW112 (new PW184) that in the Bhopal meeting, applicant was present and in the said meeting, there was a discussion about growing jihadi activities in Aurangabad and Malegaon and accused No.9 (Prasad Purohit) asked to do something for its prevention by expanding Abhinav Bharat Sanghatan in the said area,” the court said.

* Unlike the conclusion drawn by the NIA to give Sadhvi Pragya a clean chit, the court said that retraction of previous statements of two of the witnesses before the NIA is not sufficient to say that there is a change in circumstance to release her.