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  4. 2008 Malegaon blast may be work of SIMI: Pragya Thakur's lawyer tells trial court during final arguments

2008 Malegaon blast may be work of SIMI: Pragya Thakur's lawyer tells trial court during final arguments

2008 Malegaon blast case: Local people prevented police from reaching the site immediately after the blast and it could have been done to shield the accused, said Thakur's lawyer, advocate JP Mishra.

Edited By: Sheenu Sharma @20sheenu Mumbai Updated on: October 03, 2024 19:08 IST
2008 Malegaon blast case, Malegaon blast case, Malegaon blast may be work of SIMI Pragya Thakur lawy
Image Source : PTI (FILE) Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pragya Thakur.

2008 Malegaon blast case: The 2008 Malegaon blast could have been carried out by the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the lawyer of prime accused and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pragya Thakur argued before a special court in Mumbai today (October 3).

The defence is currently making final arguments in the case in the court of AK Lahoti, a special judge for the National Investigation Agency cases.

6 die, over 100 injured in Malegaon blast

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.

Whenever there is an incident such as this, people help the police. However, in this case, immediately after the incident a huge number of people gathered at the spot and pelted stones at police, preventing them from reaching the blast site, advocate Mishra claimed.

This could have been done to protect their people (belonging to SIMI), he said.

A SIMI office was located near the blast site where bombs were allegedly made, and they could be transporting explosives using the two-wheeler when there was an accidental explosion, the lawyer argued.

The investigators had claimed that the motorcycle belonged to Thakur.

Advocate JP Mishra to continue arguments on Oct 4

Mishra will continue his arguments on Friday. During the trial, the prosecution examined 323 prosecution witnesses of which 34 turned hostile. Besides Thakur who was BJP MP from Bhopal from 2019 to 2024, other accused in the case are Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.

They are booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case was initially probed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Maharashtra Police before being transferred to the NIA in 2011.

The special court on October 30, 2018, framed charges against the accused.

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