CBI to reopen Malegaon blast probe

A special court on Thursday, allowed the CBI to reinvestigate the September 8, 2006 serial blasts at Malegaon, after Swami Aseemanand confessed that the blasts were his organisation’s handiwork. HT reports.

A special court on Thursday, allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to reinvestigate the September 8, 2006 serial blasts at Malegaon, after Swami Aseemanand confessed that the blasts were his organisation’s handiwork.

On December 22, 2006, the Maharashtra ATS had filed a 2,200-page charge sheet against 13 men in the special court.
However, following pressure from political parties, then Maharashtra deputy chief minister RR Patil had announced the transfer of the case to the CBI for a fresh probe.

The CBI had, early last year, filed a chargesheet with no fresh evidence in the case.

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CBI counsel Aijaz Khan told the court that further investigation into the case had become imperative in view of the confessional statement by Swami Aseemanand before a magistrate in New Delhi in December.

Aseemanand, in his confessional statement, had identified right-wing Hindu elements who played a role in the 2006 Malegaon blasts. Accepting the CBI’s arguments, special MCOCA judge Yatin D Shinde granted permission to reinvestigate the case.

Aseemanand, in his confession before the magistrate in New Delhi, named senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, Sunil Joshi, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and senior RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra, among others, as being key conspirators in the terror blast.

Aseemanand said the blasts were in retaliation against Muslims after the attacks by jihadi terrorists on the Akshardam temple in Ahmedabad in 2002 and in the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi in 2006.

Aseemanand was arrested on November 19, 2010, in Haridwar.