Malegaon blasts: Sadhvi Pragya’s bail plea rejected

A special NIA court today rejected the bail application of 2008 Malegoan blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur who had been given a clean chit by the probe agency last month.

“The NIA and the prosecution favoured granting bail to her but after the intervention of one of the victim’s son, the court rejected Thakur’s plea”.

The application was filed after the National Investigation Agency (NIA), that is investigating the case had dropped her name from the list of accused in its chargesheet.

There are reasonable ground to believe that accusations against Sadhvi Pragya are prima facie true. Despite NIA dropping all charges against Thakur; the court took an independent view and said that prima facie charges under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act – MCOCA can not be dropped.

In July 2009, a special court had dropped MCOCA charges against the accused but the Bombay HC restored the MCOCA charges in 2010.

The court also observed that the participants in the meeting want to establish “Hindu Rashtra” and their discussion shows that they want to establish government in exile.

They contended that the state agency, Maharashtara Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), had gathered enough of evidence against Sadhvi and charges of MCOCA are applicable to the case.

The motorcycle, which was used to plant bomb and was used by the absconding accused was registered in Sadhvi Pragya’s name.

In September 2008, blasts had taken place in the Muslim-majority area of Malegaon in which 6 people were killed and 101 were injured.