A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court has reserved the verdict in the 2008 Malegaon blast case for May 8. On April 19, the prosecution filed its final written arguments, with some citation marking the end of hearing in the case, PTI reported.
At least six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.
According to the report, during the trial, the prosecution examined 323 prosecution witnesses, of whom 34 had turned hostile.
Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, BJP leader Pragya Thakur- Major Ramesh Upadhyay (retired), Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni are facing trial under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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The case was initially probed by the Maharashtra Anti Terror Squad (ATS) before being transferred to NIA in 2011.
NIA gave clean chit to Pragya Thakur, 3 others in 2016
The NIA, after taking over the case, had filed a chargesheet in 2016 giving a clean chit to Thakur and three other accused- Shyam Sahu, Praveen Takalki and Shivnarayan Kalsangra, saying it found no evidence against them and they should be discharged from the case.
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The NIA court had absolved Sahu, Kalsangra and Takalki, ruling that Thakur will have to face trial. On October 30, 2018, the special court framed charges against seven accused under the stringent UAPA and IPC. They are facing trial under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA and under IPC sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).
Recording of the testimony of the prosecution witness was completed in September last year.
(With PTI inputs)