Trial in 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case to resume on December 3

A special NIA court on Tuesday asked all the accused in 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case to remain present before it on Thursday, December 3, to enable it to resume trial.

The direction came on the plea of family members of a victim, requesting the special court to expedite the trial.

The National Investigating Agency (NIA) had responded to the plea, saying the agency was ready to resume the trial. “We told the court that because of the pandemic, we will require some time to trace the witnesses and prepare ourselves to resume the trial. But once that happens, we will go ahead with the trial on a regular basis,” it said.

In its reply, the agency claimed that the trial was delayed as most of the times, the defence advocates have requested for an adjournment.

The special court has discharged some of the accused and now seven of them, namely Lt Col Prasad Purohit, BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi alias Swami Amrit Anand, Samir Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Major Ramesh Upadhyay and Sudhakar Chaturvedi, are facing the trial.

“After framing of the charges, the case is being conducted on a day-to-day basis. The prosecution is making all efforts for conducting a speedy trial by assuring the presence of the witnesses,” NIA said, pointing out that so far, 140 prosecution witnesses have been examined.

The trial came to a standstill after retirement of the special judge VL Padalkar and the court remained vacant, till the appointment of PR Sitre as special judge, said the agency, adding that the trial could not be resumed due to Covid-19 pandemic.

As per the prosecution case, late in the evening of September 29, 2008, a bomb planted on a motorcycle went off opposite a religious shrine at Malegaon, killing six people and injuring 101.