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  5. Plea to bar me from contesting polls ‘frivolous,’ says Pragya Thakur

Plea to bar me from contesting polls ‘frivolous,’ says Pragya Thakur

BJP's candidate from the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, Pragya Singh Thakur  filed her response to the plea by the father of a deceased victim in the 2008 Malegaon terror blast seeking to bar her from contesting the ongoing elections and dubbed the petition as "frivolous"

PTI Reported by: PTI Mumbai Published on: April 23, 2019 16:23 IST
The father of one of the blast victims moved the court,
Image Source : PTI

The father of one of the blast victims moved the court, urging it to bar Thakur from contesting the election from Bhopal.

BJP's candidate from the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast on Tuesday said the application seeking to bar her from contesting the Lok Sabha election is “frivolous” and moved with a “political agenda”.

She also sought its dismissal by the special NIA court here.

The father of one of the blast victims moved the court last Thursday, urging it to bar Thakur, the prime accused in the case, from contesting the election.

In her response, Thakur said, "The applicant has deliberately chosen this court to ventilate misconceived and frivolous application for want of publicity and extraneous reasons with political agenda.”

It has not only wasted the precious time of this court, but also attempted to consequentially drag, demean and lower the dignity and reputation of the court, Thakur said in her response.

She prayed the court to dismiss the application with an exemplary cost and also urged that the applicant be dealt with sternly for filing such a "frivolous" plea.

Meanwhile, the NIA in its reply submitted that it has no jurisdiction to say anything in the matter.

"The matter of contesting election is not related to this court and it is to be decided by the Election Commission only," it said.

On the cancellation of Thakur's bail, the NIA submitted that a petition against it was pending in the Supreme Court.

The court later adjourned the matter to Wednesday for further hearing.

Nisar Sayyad, who lost his son in the blast, filed the application against Thakur last week after the BJP fielded her from the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, where she is locked in a battle with Congress veteran Digvijay Singh.

The applicant sought that Thakur, who is out on bail, be asked to attend court proceedings in Mumbai and barred from contesting the election as the trial is in progress.

It further mentioned that Thakur got bail on health grounds. If she is "healthy enough to fight elections in the crippling summers heat", then she has misled the court, the complainant alleged.

A petition seeking cancellation of her bail was pending before the Supreme Court, it said.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured in a bomb blast at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested Thakur and others in the case, alleging that they were part of a Hindu extremist group which carried out the blast.

The NIA later gave Thakur a clean chit, but the court did not discharge Thakur.

It dropped charges against her under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, but she is still facing trial under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code section

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