Malegaon blast case: NIA doesn't oppose Sadhvi's bail plea

The National Investigation Agency, which is probing the 2008 Malegaon blast case, on Monday did not oppose in a court here the bail application filed by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur after giving her a clean chit last month.

"We have not opposed her bail application. We told the (special NIA) court that we have filed the charge sheet and the court may take appropriate decision," an NIA officer said.

The NIA, in its charge sheet filed on May 13, dropped all the charges against Pragya and five others citing lack of evidence.

Meanwhile, Nisar Ahmed Sayyed Bilal, who was among those injured in the blast, has filed an intervention application opposing the bail for Pragya. He being an `affected party', the court should hear him, he says.

The court is likely to hear intervention application on Wednesday.

Sadhvi Pragya, Shyam Sahu, Shiv Kalsangra and Pravinn Takkalki have filed applications for bail.

Pragya has contended in the application that there is no evidence against her. Though the motor-cycle used in the blast was owned by her, according to one of the witnesses it was in the possession of Ramchandra Kalsangra, an absconding accused, she says.

Some of the witnesses whose statements were used to implicate her later recanted and filed complaints of torture by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, the application adds.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the bail plea of four accused in the case.

Special NIA judge V V Patil rejected the bail applications of Manor Singh, Rajendra Chaudhry, Dhan Singh and Lokesh Sharma.

The four accused had urged for liberty after the court discharged eight Muslim co-accused in the case in April. The four accused in the bail plea said that they were falsely implicated in the 2006 Malegaon blast case and there was no evidence against them.

The defence lawyers argued that many things which the NIA claimed to have recovered from the accused were easily available in the market.

However, the prosecution argued that there was ample evidence against the accused and the case is very serious in nature. Hence, they should not be given bail.

An explosion had taken place in a bicycle after Friday prayers near Hamidia Mosque near Bada Kabrastan in Malegaon in 2006, killing 37 persons. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, which first probed the case, had arrested eight Muslim men on the basis of alleged links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

Later the Central Bureau of Investigation endorsed it. However, the NIA took over the investigation after Assemanand made revelations in his confession in another case about alleged involvement of Hindu right wing groups in the Malegoan blast case.

Seven people were killed in a blast at Malegaon, a predominantly Muslim town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.