Nineteen years after four blasts in Malegaon town claimed 31 lives, a special court in Mumbai on Tuesday framed charges against four accused against whom the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had filed a chargesheet.
Accused Manohar Narwaria, Rajendra Chaudhary, Dhan Singh and Lokesh Sharma pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Special judge C S Baviskar framed charges against them under sections including murder and criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act, paving way for the trial. Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty had previously submitted draft charges against the accused.
On July 31, a special court had pronounced judgment in the Malegaon 2008 blast case, acquitting all seven. The 2006 case, however, saw many twists and turns, with the trial not commencing despite many years since the blasts. On September 8, 2006, four bombs exploded in Malegaon, three inside the premises of Hamidia Masjid and Bada Kabrastan just after Friday prayers, and the fourth in Mushawarat Chowk claiming 31 lives and injuring 312 persons.
Initially, the probe was conducted by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which claimed that 13 Muslim men were behind the blast. Nine of these men were arrested by the ATS, claiming that they had met at a conspiracy meeting during a wedding of one of them on May 6, 2006. The case was then transferred to the CBI which filed a supplementary chargesheet naming the same individuals.
A third agency, the NIA took over the probe in 2011, after Swami Aseemanand, who was then an accused in the Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid blasts, recorded his statement before the magistrate in 2010, saying the 2006 Malegaon blasts were allegedly the handiwork of right-wing activist Sunil Joshi and his men. The statement was eventually retracted but the NIA’s probe led to another supplementary chargesheet in 2013, which said that the nine Muslim men arrested earlier were not involved in the blasts. A special court discharged the nine men in 2016, based on the NIA chargesheet, even though during the proceedings for their discharge the agency did a U-turn and sought to keep both sets of accused in the case.
The NIA’s chargesheet named the four men against whom charges were framed on Tuesday. The NIA claimed that a conspiracy was planned in Madhya Pradesh by the accused where training in arms and making of bombs was also imparted. It also claimed that the men has different roles, from purchasing bicycles to fitting and transporting them at the blasts site.
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While the ATS challenged the 2016 discharge of the nine Muslim men it had arrested, the current set of accused also challenged the order and sought quashing of the case against them before the Bombay High Court, which is pending.
In 2019, the Bombay High Court granted bail to four accused, which had then said that the men were in jail for over six years without the trial commencing and also said that the trial court, should have considered the entire record, including the chargesheets filed by the previous probe agencies, ATS and the CBI.
