Malegaon blast verdict: 17 years later, all seven accused, including BJP leader Pragya Thakur, acquitted

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Malegaon blast verdict: 17 years later, all seven accused, including BJP leader Pragya Thakur, acquitted
Malegaon blast verdict: Almost 17 years after a blast killed six persons and left more than 100 injured in Maharashtra's communally sensitive Malegaon town, a special NIA court on Thursday acquitted a
By Nivedita Dash Edited by Nivedita Dash
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Malegaon blast verdict: 17 years later, all seven accused including BJP leader Pragya Thakur acquitted
Malegaon blast verdict: Almost 17 years after a blast killed six persons and left more than 100 injured in Maharashtra's communally sensitive Malegaon town, a special NIA court on Thursday acquitted all the accused including BJP leader and former MP Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit.
Seven accused, including BJP leader and former MP Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, were facing trial in the case for offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code.
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Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni were the other accused in the case.
What the court said?
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The court instructed that the families of all six victims of the blast will be given Rs 2 lakh each, and all injured victims will be given Rs 50,000 as compensation.
The court said:
UAPA will not be invoked in this case as sanction was not taken as per rules. Both the sanction orders of the UAPA in the case are defective.
Abhinav Bharat organisation was used as a common reference by the prosecution. There is no evidence that the money of the Abhinav Bharat was used for terror activities.
Prosecution proved that a blast occurred in Malegaon, but failed to prove that a bomb was placed in that motorcycle. The court has come to the conclusion that the injured people were not 101 but 95 only, and there was manipulation in some medical certificates.
What was the case?
Six persons were killed and more than 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in the town, located about 200 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.
In its final argument, the NIA submitted that the blast in Malegaon – a town with a sizable Muslim population – was orchestrated by the conspirators to terrorise a section of Muslim community, disrupt essential services, create communal tensions, and threaten the state's internal security.
The NIA has said that based on 'relevant, admissible, cogent, trustworthy, wholly reliable and proved evidence' it 'conclusively and cogently' established the crucial circumstances to form a complete chain of events.
The charges comprised UAPA sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) and various IPC sections, including 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).