Malegaon blasts: Bombay HC reserves its order on Purohit plea for bail

The Bombay High Court Friday reserved its order in the petition filed by Lt Col Prasad Purohit, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts, challenging a lower court order that denied him bail. Purhoit was arrested in November 2008 for allegedly procuring RDX to carry out the blast and hatching the conspiracy. On Friday, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) concluded its arguments, and said prima facie there was enough evidence to suggest Purohit played a major role in conspiring and executing the blasts.

NIA’s counsel Sandesh Patil pointed out that both NIA’s chargesheet and the one filed by the Maharashtra ATS established that Purohit had “participated in conspiracy meetings, given provocative speeches and agreed to get explosives for the act”. He, however, said that though the two chargesheets contained “contradictory findings” when it comes to some other accused, the NIA “did not want the ATS chargesheet completely obliterated”, and that the court must “consider both chargesheets”. Patil said that after taking over from the ATS, it had conducted the probe into the case with all “fairness” and it was wrong to point fingers with its findings.