Policenama online: All the seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, was asked by special NIA court to appear, including BJP’s Bhopal candidate Pragya Singh Thakur.
Vinod Padalkar, special NIA judge,who is conducting trail in the case, said that the plea for exemption must be filed by 11am for each hearing.
Application was filed by an intervener to have ATS officials to assist the prosecution and NIA in the Malegaon case was also disposed of as not maintainable. Out of the seven accused, only Sameer Kulkarni was present in the court today whereas a few others had submitted reasons for their absence.
Apart from Pragya Singh Thakur, the other accused are Lt. Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni. They have been charged under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The charges include sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA and sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups) of the IPC.
The accused have also been charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act. On September 29, 2018, six people were killed and a dozen others were injured when a bomb placed on a motorcycle exploded in Maharashtra’s Malegaon city.