2008 Malegaon blasts case: When five witnesses became two and gave new versions

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Today, Savarkar is dead, Patidar has been missing for close to seven years and Bairagi has retracted his statement. The National Investigation Agency, which filed a supplementary chargesheet last month negating the ATS’s central contentions, reexamined the remaining two witnesses — Badana, a farmer from Haryana, and Singh, a former endocrinologist. The NIA took over the investigation in 2011 but reexamined Bandana and Singh only in the last months of 2015, just months before its supplementary chargesheet gave a clean chit to Pragya.

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Of 452 witnesses in the ATS chargesheet, the NIA reexamined only 11.

“All the witnesses have already retracted from their statements,” the NIA told the Mumbai court trying the case. As for Savarkar, among the eyewitnesses to the meeting in Bhopal, the NIA told the court that her statement was “of no use” as “she has expired”.

The NIA did not rely on the original statements of Patidar and Bairagi, who according to the ATS chargesheet were the sole eyewitnesses who saw Pragya with bomb planters Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra days before and after the blast. While Bairagi had retracted his statement, Patidar’s disappearance, the NIA said, was evidence of the “dubious methods adopted during investigation by ATS”.

On why it picked Badana and Singh for reexamination, the NIA has explained this was because accused Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni and Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi said during interrogation in judicial custody that Badana had not been present at the Bhopal meeting.

Yashpal Badana

The ATS’s prosecution witness No. 79, he gave his first statement on December 12, 2008. A disciple of Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi, Badana told the ATS he met Dwivedi in 2003 when in Faridabad for a religious function. To the NIA, Badana said this meeting had been in 2006.

In 2007, Dwivedi visited Faridabad again. According to Badana’s original statement to the ATS, “Dwivedi spoke of killing Muslims in bomb blasts as a retaliation to Hindus being attacked in India.” His fresh deposition in front of a Delhi magistrate, however, is that the “shankaracharya” did not tell him Muslims were killing Hindus with blasts.

He said he had travelled to Nashik, on Dwivedi’s invitation, by the Nizamuddin Express, and was received by Dwivedi’s followers who accompanied him to a Deolali farmhouse owned by a man named Ajay Thapar. According to the ATS, this is where Badana was introduced to Prasad Purohit. The following day, Purohit, Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and others left for Bhosale Military School where, according to the ATS chargesheet, Badana recalled Purohit saying, “Under the veil of Abhinav Bharat we need to take revenge by orchestrating blasts at Muslim neighborhoods.”

In his fresh statement, Badana has said he went to Nashik, but to visit the Bhima Shankar temple. He has denied visiting Bhosale Military School or meeting Purohit or Major Upadhyay.

Two alleged conspiracy meetings took place in 2008, in Faridabad on January 25 and in Bhopal on April 11. According to the ATS chargseheet, Badana said he did not “fully” attend the first as he was busy playing host. On the occasions when he entered the meeting hall, he said he saw the group — Dwivedi, Purohit, Chaturvedi, Kulkarni, R P Singh, Chetanbhai, B L Sharma —discuss atrocities on Hindus by Muslims and the need to reply through a bomb blast. When everyone left, Badana told the ATS, Dwivedi asked him if he knew how to use firearms or how to explode bombs. Badana replied that he had seen miners in Sirahi explode bombs. Dwivedi allegedly said Purohit could teach people bomb-making techniques in Panchmarhi, Madhya Pradesh.

In his fresh statement, Badana has said he had no such conversation, and that he did not hear anyone speak while he was serving tea and snacks.

According to Badana’s original statement, Dwivedi asked him to participate in the closed-door meeting of April 11, 2008 — the ATS chargesheet’s most crucial eyewitness evidence against Pragya — at which Abhinav Bharat was formed. After a public meeting took place in the first half of the day at Ram Mandir, Bhopal, the alleged closed-door meeting took place on the temple’s top floor, where Savarkar was allegedly present along with Pragya and members of Abhinav Bharat. Badana said he served snacks and tea, and so walked into the room on a few occasions. “I overheard Purohit say we need to act against Muslims real soon. Malegaon has a lot of Muslims. If blasts takes place there, it’s like taking revenge for Hindu killings,” Badana’s original statement read. He added that Pragya replied: “You will need men for the blast and I will provide that.”

In his re-examination in a Delhi court, Badana has denied having visited Bhopal in 2008. He says he knows of this temple only because the ATS took him there during the investigations in 2009.

R P Singh

Prosecution witness No. 112 was an endocrinologist at Apollo Hospital in New Delhi. He first recorded his statement to the ATS on December 24, 2008, and confirmed Badana’s presence at all three meetings. He recalled being introduced to Badana in Faridabad on January 25. Singh said that on April 11, 2008, Badana served snacks at the Bhopal public meeting as well as at the closed-door meeting. According to the ATS chargesheet, Singh said that in the closed-door meeting Pragya spoke of assisting Purohit’s plans by supplying bomb planters.

In his fresh statement, R P Singh echoed Badana, saying the latter served tea in Faridabad but was not present in Bhopal.

The now discarded statement of Himani Sarvakar, a descendant of Veer Sarvakar, had been that Purohit had called for an attack in Malegaon during the Bhopal meeting, and that Pragya had promised men to execute the plan. A man supplied water a few times inside the room, Savarkar had said.

Savarkar’s statement was recorded on December 26, 2008, in which she denied that members of Abhinav Bharat were party to the blasts in Malegaon. She, however, admitted that she had attended the Bhopal meeting. She recalled hearing Purohit calling for revenge through an attack in Malegaon, and that Pragya offered help . “It is at this point me and R P Singh walked out of this meeting as we disagreed with this plan,” reads her statement, part of the ATS’s chargesheet.

In his re-examination, Singh agreed he left the meeting midway but gave a different reason. “While I was delivering a lecture on Maoist activities in Nepal, Major Ramesh Upadhyay obstructed me and used some foul language which I cannot recall now, as such I left the programme. Himani Savarkar also left the programme,” he said.

While he has retained most of his earlier statement regarding the Bhopal meeting, he added that Colonel Purohit described jihadi activities in detail, and asked for its prevention through expansion of Abhinav Bharat. “Purohit did not say about the preparations for the [guerrilla] war etc and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur also didn’t say that some people were ready for this task,” he has said.

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