Malegaon blast: Victims move HC against acquittal of Pragya Thakur, 6 others

Six family members of the victims who died in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast have filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court HC challenging the acquittal of all the seven accused including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad PurohitThe appeal filed on Monday by Nisar Ahmed Sayyed Bilal and five others through advocate Mateen Shaikh seeks to quash the special NIA courtrsquos judgment delivered on July 31 which cleared all accused of the charges reported news agency PTIThe petitioners argued that the trial court erred in law and fact stating that flaws in the investigation alone should not be grounds for acquittal They further emphasised that in cases of criminal conspiracy direct evidence is rarely available as such plots are hatched in secrecyCalling the special courtrsquos ruling ldquoerroneous and bad in lawrdquo the families urged the High Court to overturn the verdict and reexamine the evidence PTI reportedThe Malegaon blast which occurred in September 2008 killed six people and injured over 100As per the HC website the appeal is likely to come up for hearing before a division bench headed by Justice AS Gadkari on September 15An explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town located about 200 km from Mumbai in Maharashtras Nashik district on September 29 2008 killing six persons and injuring 101 othersThe claim said the trial court judge should not act as a postman or mute spectator in a criminal trial When the prosecution failed to elicit facts the trial court can ask questions andor summon witnesses it added reported PTIThe trial court has unfortunately acted as a mere post office and allowed a deficient prosecution to benefit the accused the appeal saidIt also pointed out that the previous special public prosecutor Rohini Salian had alleged pressure from the NIA to go slow in the case against the accused after which a new prosecutor was appointedThe appeal also raised concerns over the manner in which the National Investigation Agency NIA conducted the probe and trial in the case and sought for the accused to be convictedThe state AntiTerrorism Squad ATS by arresting the seven persons unearthed a large conspiracy and since then there has been no blast in areas populated by the minority community the appeal saidIt claimed the NIA after taking over the case diluted the allegations against the accused personsThe appeal further claimed the special court had erred in concluding that the motorcycle used in the blast was not owned by Thakur and the RDX used was not procured by PurohitThere was enough evidence to show the accused persons had hatched the conspiracy to carry out the blast and the special court had erred in holding that there was only strong suspicion against the accused but not sufficient evidence to convict them it saidThe appeal said a conspiracy is hatched in secrecy and hence there cannot be any direct evidence of the sameThe special court had in its judgment said that mere suspicion cannot replace real proof and there was no cogent or reliable evidence to warrant a convictionSpecial judge A K Lahoti presiding over the NIA court had said there was no reliable and cogent evidence against the accused that proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt as per the PTIThe prosecutions case was that the blast was carried out by rightwing extremists with the intention to terrorise the Muslim community in the communally sensitive Malegaon townThe NIA court had in its judgment flagged several loopholes in the prosecutions case and the investigation carried out and said the accused persons deserved the benefit of doubtBesides Thakur and Purohit the accused included Major Ramesh Upadhyay retired Ajay Rahirkar Sudhakar Dwivedi Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer KulkarniWith PTI inputs