Malegaon blasts: Special NIA court rejects bail plea of Sadhvi Pragya

The special NIA court on Tuesday rejected the bail application filed by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a key accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts case.

New Delhi: The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Tuesday rejected the bail application filed by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a key accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts case.

The order was passed by special judge Shripad Tekale, who had last week reserved his order on the bail plea after hearing arguments of the applicant’s lawyer and father of a blast victim who had intervened in the matter.

The court had already rejected the intervention application of a group of four persons on grounds that they did not have locus in this case.

However, the NIA did not oppose the bail plea saying that it was relying on the chargesheet filed by NIA that had given a clean chit to the applicant because it did not find any evidence against her.

Syed Nisar Ahmed, a resident of Malegaon, whose son Bilal died in the blast, after filing an intervention application, opposed the bail plea through Advocate Khan Abdul Wahab and Shaikh Sharif Ahmed.

The duo argued that even if the investigating agency was not opposing the bail plea filed by these accused, it was for the court to decide whether to grant bail or not on the basis of material available on record.

They contended that the NIA carried out further investigation into the case and it was not a re-investigation. They said that the ATS collected concrete evidence and material and also recorded statements of witnesses and hence, NIA could not say there was no evidence against them.

It was further argued in court that even the MCOCA was applicable to the case because it was invoked after following due process of law. It may be recalled that MCOCA has been removed from the case.