Malegaon verdict today: Recalling the 2008 bombing and the case against the accused

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which took over the investigation from the local police, suspected that the improvised explosive device (IED) had been planted on an LML Freedom motorcycle.

It was suspected that the conspirators had consciously chosen the month of Ramzan and the eve of Navaratri to carry out the bombing, intending to cause communal rifts and endanger the internal security of the state.

Arrests and allegations by the ATS

The ATS claimed that the registration number of the motorcycle that was found at the site of the explosion – MH-15-P-4572 – was fake, and that its engine number and chassis number had been erased. The motorcycle was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Nashik for restoration of the erased numbers.

The ATS alleged that the owner of the bike was Pragya Singh Thakur alias Sadhwi Poornachetanand Giri, and arrested her on October 23, 2008. Thakur’s arrest and interrogation, the ATS claimed, led it to the other accused.

The agency said that it had intercepted phone calls of suspected persons. Calls between Lt Col Purohit and retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay were under scrutiny. Upadhyay and Sameer Kulkarni were arrested on October 28. By November 14, 2008, a total of 11 persons had been arrested. Among them was Purohit, who was arrested from the premises of the Army in Colaba in South Mumbai.

The accused claimed that they were illegally detained by the ATS before being produced in court, and that they had been tortured in custody.

In November 2008, the ATS invoked stringent sections of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA) against them. They were accused of having formed an organisation named Abhinav Bharat, which was an organised crime syndicate.

In its chargesheet filed on January 20, 2009, the ATS named the 11 arrested persons as accused, and another three as wanted accused. The accused were charged under the IPC and UAPA. The ATS claimed that the accused had discussed targeting Muslims as revenge against terrorist acts by Muslim men.

It was also alleged that the accused had discussed working towards ‘Aryawart’ or a Hindu rashtra with its own Constitution and flag, and a “government in exile”.

According to the ATS, the conspiracy had begun from January 2008, and meetings were held at a number of places including Faridabad, Bhopal, and Nashik. The ATS claimed that Thakur had promised to provide people to carry out the bombing, and funds were raised through Abhinav Bharat.

RDX, the plastic explosive used in the IED, was procured by Purohit from his posting in Jammu and Kashmir, and the bomb was assembled at the house of the arrested accused Sudhakar Chaturvedi, the ATS claimed.

It was alleged that the explosive device was fitted on the motorcycle by Chaturvedi and another accused, Ramchandra Kalsangra, after which the vehicle was parked at the spot.

NIA finds gaps in ATS investigation

In 2011, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the federal investigation agency that was set up after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Even as the NIA continued with its investigation, the accused approached courts challenging the invocation of MCOCA against them, under which their confessions were recorded.

In its chargesheet filed on May 13, 2016, the NIA dropped the charges under MCOCA, saying that the manner in which the organised crime law was invoked by the ATS was “questionable”.

The ATS probe, it said, was filled with “lacunae”, and of the 11 individuals arrested by the agency, evidence existed against only seven, and against the two wanted accused, Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange.

The NIA said that the motorcycle registered in Thakur’s name had been in the possession of Kalsangra, who was using it well before the blast. It also said that since MCOCA was not applied, confessions made under the Act, including a statement where it was claimed that Thakur had asked a co-accused to call Purohit to arrange for explosives, were inadmissible as evidence.

Most of the ATS’s case against the accused relied on confessions, and the NIA said that the confession of Chaturvedi was an “outcome of torture”. It also said that due to the passage of time, no additional evidence could be recovered from the spot.

The NIA re-recorded the statements of some witnesses before magistrates, citing inconsistencies in the ATS probe. Witnesses who the ATS had claimed were present in meetings in Bhopal and Faridabad where discussions on revenge and the blast were allegedly held, told the NIA that they were not present at these purported meetings, and did not hear any such talk.

One of the main allegations in the NIA chargesheet was that the ATS had created false evidence to implicate the accused, and had illegally entered the house of Chatuvedi in Deolali, as was noticed by two Army officers.

What court said on Thakur, Purohit, others

Despite the NIA’s pitch to drop Thakur as an accused, the special court hearing the case said there was prima facie evidence to put her on trial. Even though the NIA chargesheet claimed there was no witness or other proof to show her involvement in the conspiracy, the court said that it was difficult to accept Thakur’s claim that she had no connection with the blast.

On Purohit, a military intelligence officer, the court said that a conclusion could not be drawn that he had participated in the alleged conspiracy meetings ahead of the blast in the discharge of his duty and with the permission of his superiors, as he had claimed.

On December 27, 2017, the court accepted the NIA’s contention that MCOCA cannot be invoked in the case. It said that the seven accused – Thakur, Purohit, retired Major Upadhyay, Kulkarni, Chaturvedi, Ajay Rahirkar, and Sudhakar Dwivedi – would face trial under UAPA, IPC, and the Explosive Substances Act, 1908.

The court also said that two other accused, Rakesh Dhawde and Jagdish Mhatre, would face trial only under the Arms Act, 1959, in Pune, and three others would be discharged for lack of evidence, as proposed by the NIA.

How the trial of the accused progressed

The trial began in December 2018. The ATS, the previous probe agency, did not have a say in the proceedings, but the prosecution relied on documents and evidence collected by both the ATS and the NIA during the trial.

More than 30 witnesses who were cited in the chargesheet passed away before they could depose before the court. The prosecution examined 323 witnesses and cited technical evidence including Call Data Records and voice samples.

Thirty-four of the witnesses turned hostile. The testimonies of these witnesses mainly related to Purohit and the alleged conspiracy meetings. These witnesses denied having participated in or heard any discussions by the accused about the conspiracy to carry out a bomb blast.

Some of the accused also alleged that they had been coerced, illegally detained, and threatened by the ATS into giving false statements naming certain persons.

In its final arguments, the prosecution submitted that there was evidence in respect of Call Data Records, and forensic evidence to show that the explosive device had been planted in the LML motorcycle. There was also evidence to show the presence of the accused at the places where the conspiracy meetings had taken place, and other documentary proof.

The accused claimed that with witnesses turning hostile, the conspiracy was not proven at all. The accused also claimed that a mob of 15,000 had “manipulated” the crime scene.

Police officials deposed that a mob, angry about the attack, had gathered and stones were thrown at the police. Lawyers for the accused claimed that the mob was “motivated”, and had “attempted to screen the real culprit”.