Malegaon Blast Case: MCOCA charges against Lt Col Purohit, Pragya Thakur dropped by NIA Court

NewsBharati    27-Dec-2017
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Mumbai, December 27: In 2008 Malegaon blast case, Pragya Thakur, Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahikar, Lt Col Purohit discharged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) and arms act by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai today. 

“All accused are already out on bail and will continue to be on bail, All previous bonds and sureties are to continue,” NIA Court said.

The court said the accused persons will face trial under sections 16 (committing a terror act) and 18 (criminal conspiracy) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and sections 120(b) (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 326 (intentionally causing harm to others) of the IPC.

Apart from Sadhvi and Purohit, the accused who will now face trial in the case are: Sudhakar Dwivedi, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Ajay Rahirkar. All the accused are currently out on bail.

The court also discharged three accused – Shyam Sahu, Shivnarayan Kalsangra and Praveen Takalki – from all charges. The next date of hearing is January 15.

A special MCOCA court had earlier ruled that the Anti-Terrorist Squad had wrongly applied this law against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Lt Col Purohit and nine others.

Notably, the plea is pending before the apex court bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar. The SC said that it would hear the matter in due course of timing.

Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008, at Malegaon, a textile town in Nasik district of north Maharashtra. The charge sheet had had named Thakur, Purohit and co-accused, Swami Dayanand Pandey as the key conspirators.

In August this year, Lt Col Purohit was granted bail by the Supreme Court after spending nine years in jail. The apex court said there several contradictions in the charge-sheets filed by Maharashtra's Anti-Terror Squad and the National Investigation Agency, which took over the case in 2011. Sadhvi was also granted bail earlier in the year by the Bombay high court.