Malegaon blast: victims’ kin move Bombay HC against acquittal of Pragya Thakur, Col Purohit and 5 others

A division bench of Justices Ajey S Gadkari and Ranjitsinha R Bhosale is likely to hear the appeal on September 15.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured on September 29, 2008, when an explosive device went off near a mosque at Malegaon in Maharashtra’s Nashik district.

Besides Thakur and Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sameer Kulkarni, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi were cleared of all charges by special judge A K Lahoti, including criminal conspiracy and murder under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

‘Judgment not maintainable’

The appeal filed through advocate Mateen Shaikh claimed that the impugned judgment was “not maintainable on facts as well as in law” and it was passed “contrary to settled position of law with regard to the appreciation of the evidence and hence the
same is required to be set aside and quashed as bad in law.”

The appellants include Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayyed Bilal, Shaikh Liyaqat Mohiuddin, Shaikh Ishaque Shaikh Yusuf, Usman Khan Ainullah Khan, Mushtaque Shah Haroon Shah, and Shaikh Ibrahim Shaikh Supdo.

They argued that the explosion that killed their family members and injured several persons in the crowded locality occured on the LML motorbike and “the evidence on record was sufficient to conclude that the bike found at the scene belonged to Thakur”.

Moreover, the plea claimed that “there was no evidence produced by Thakur that she had given away the LML Motorcycle  purchased in her name, or that it had been stolen” and “despite this, her uncorroborated claim that she had long parted with her bike was relied upon by the trial court to hold that she cannot be connected to the bike used in the blast.”

The appeal filed on Monday (September 8) further claimed that “the accused were in conspiracy with each other is also supported by the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of their mobile numbers which has been brought on record” and conspiracy meetings held at Bhopal, Faridabad, Nashik, Indore, Kolkata etc, as established by the prosecution. However, the appeal claimed, the special judge “erred in holding that it showed strong suspicion against the accused, but not sufficient to convict accused persons”.

‘Judge failed to admit Lt Col Purohit’s admission’

The appellants also claimed that the special judge ” failed to appreciate” admission by Purohit of attending conspiracy meetings, to hold that he and other accused had hatched conspiracy as the “admission itself was sufficient to convict all accused persons”.

“The Special Judge ought to have appreciated that faulty investigation and some defects in investigation cannot be a ground for acquitting the accused persons. Procedural lapses by police officers while collecting electronic evidence should not have been dismissed in this fashion in the case of terrorist activities,” the appeal reads.

The victims also alleged that the NIA did not record the statements of any new witnesses while further investigating the case and the agency “merely re-recorded the statements of few witnesses who categorically stated the exact opposite to what they told to Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) during the investigation.”

This, as per the appellants, “suggests that the NIA was introduced only to weaken the case and give benefit to accused persons”. “Interestingly the NIA has not recorded or re-recorded the statement of any Police Witnesses in this case, this also gives great suspicion the way NIA conducted the Investigation and prosecuted the accused,” the victims claimed.