Daily News and Analysis
One year later, Malegaon blast case is at a standstill
DNA
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 2:00 IST
Mumbai: This day last year, a bomb went off at Malegaon's busy Bhiku Chowk, which exposed a new face of terror. Investigation by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) of the state police revealed that the blast was the handiwork of a Hindu radical group.
It was the chassis number of a motorcycle parked outside Bhiku Chowk on September 29 last year that led to the unveiling of the first known "Hindu terror group". The motorcycle was registered in the name of a sadhvi called Pragya Singh Thakur. Soon enough, she became the first person to be arrested in the case.
The sadhvi's arrest led to more shocking arrests. For the first time, an army intelligence officer, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, and a retired army officer, Maj Ramesh Upadhyay, were arrested in a terror case. Later, police arrested four others, including Rakesh Dhawade, an antique arms collector from Pune who allegedly helped the group to assemble an RDX bomb. The RDX was allegedly stashed away by Purohit from his stint in Jammu & Kashmir.
"It was Purohit who was involved in the entire conspiracy," an ATS officer said. "He also started an organisation called Abhinav Bharat, which aimed to propagate the idea of a separate Hindu nation."
The police then arrested Dayanand Pandey, a seer. His arrest was seen as a major success, as far as gathering evidence was concerned. According to a police officer, Pandey was part of the meetings between the suspects to plot the blast. "Pandey used to videotape parts of the meetings on his laptop," the officer said. "We seized his laptop and recovered those clippings."
It was DNA which first reported the police suspicion about Ramji Kalsangra, one of the planters of the bomb outside a mosque at Bhiku Chowk. Kalsangra and Sameer Dange, who allegedly left the RDX-laden bike near the mosque, are still at large. Both are believed to be Thakur's men.
The case was first heard at the Nashik metropolitan magistrate's court. But the police claimed that Dhawade had been involved in the bomb blasts at Jalna in 2003 and Parbhani in 2004. On November 20, they slapped the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) on the suspects in the Malegaon case and submitted a 4,500-page charge-sheet.
The courtroom drama was restricted to multiple complaints by the sadhvi about almost everything in jail. She had issues with the food, the treatment, and the noise, among other things.
On July 31, the prosecution in the case suffered a blow when a special MCOCA judge dropped the MCOCA charges against all the accused in the case. The prosecution has challenged the order in the Bombay high court. Till then, the case is being heard at the Nashik sessions court.
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