2008 Malegaon blast accused retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay granted bail

Mumbai: 2008 Malegaon blast accused Major Ramesh Upadhyay was granted bail by Bombay High Court on Monday.

Earlier, the Supreme Court in August had granted bail to Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit (retired), the main accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast which killed seven people.

A National Investigation Court (NIA) court on September 19 had granted bail to Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sudhakar Dwivedi in the blast case.

On the evening of September 29, 2008, a powerful bomb exploded near the Nooraji Mosque in Malegaon killing six persons and injuring 100 others.

The 4,000-page charge sheet had alleged that Malegaon was selected as the blast target because of a sizeable Muslim population there. It had named Sadhvi Thakur, Purohit and co-accused, Swami Dayanand Pandey as the key conspirators. However, Thakur was given clean chit by the NIA in 2016.