NIA to question Sadhvi about Modasa blast

A special court in the city allowed the National Investigation Agency on Tuesday to question Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur in connection with a bomb blast that took place in Modasa in Gujarat.

A special court in the city allowed the National Investigation Agency on Tuesday to question Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur in connection with a bomb blast that took place in Modasa in Gujarat.

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Thakur, 41, who is under arrest for her suspected involvement in a bomb blast in Malegaon in Maharashtra in September 2008, and her group, the Hindu extremist Abhinav Bharat, are likely to be involved in both incidents, an NIA source said. “We will be meeting Sadhvi soon,” said the official from the agency on condition of anonymity. “It’s not a coincidence that both the blasts happened on the same day.”

Set up after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks to probe terror cases, the agency will interrogate Thakur for the first time in Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, where she is being treated for various ailments.

Thakur and ten others are in custody for their suspected involvement in the Malegaon blast, which killed six people and injured 101 others. The Modasa blast killed one person.

But it could not question them because the investigation officer was transferred. The agency filed a fresh application after a new investigation officer took charge.

A picture has emerged of several blasts being the handiwork an entrenched Hindu terror network rather than a clutch few extremists after Swami Aseemanand, a member of Abhinav Bharat who is also an accused in the Malegaon case, told investigators in December that the group was involved in several bomb blasts.

After his confession, the ministry of home affairs decided to transfer a clutch of terror cases to the national agency.