2008 Malegaon blast case trial in concluding stage NIA court to hear final arguments from July 24

Mumbai, Jul 23 (PTI) Almost 16 years after a bomb blast in Malegaon, Maharashtra, claimed six lives and left over 100 injured, the trial proceedings have entered the final phase, with the special NIA court set to hear the concluding arguments from Wednesday.
    Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit and former BJP MP Pragya Thakur are prominent among the seven accused on trial under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, the Supreme Court stayed proceedings against one of them, Sameer Kulkarni.
    The court wrapped up the recording of evidence on Tuesday with the examination of the final defence witness. Judge A K Lahoti will now hear the prosecution and defence one last time before delivering the verdict.
    At least six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
    Throughout the trial, the prosecution examined 323 witnesses, although 34 among them turned hostile.
    Eight defence witnesses were examined by the accused, of which seven were called by Purohit.
    Besides Purohit and Thakur, others on trial under UAPA include Major Ramesh Upadhyay (retd), Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sameer Kulkarni.
    The case was initially handled by Maharashtra's Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) before being transferred to the NIA in 2011. The NIA filed a charge sheet in 2016, absolving Pragya Thakur and three others- Shyam Sahu, Praveen Takalki and Shivnarayan Kalsangra- due to lack of evidence. However, the NIA court retained charges against Thakur after further examination.
    At that time, the special court had dropped stringent charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the accused.
    In October 2018, the special court framed charges against the accused, including sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA and sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (Punishment for murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups) of the IPC.
    The trial commenced in 2018 with the examination of witnesses and concluded with the statements of the accused and defence witnesses. Recording of the testimony of the prosecution witness was completed last September.
    The court heard the statements of the accused under section 313 of the CrPc, followed by the examination of defence witnesses.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)