Maharashtra ATS arrest Mutalik in Malegaon blast case

Mumbai, Feb 1 (ANI): Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested Praveen Mutalik, an absconding accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts case.

It has been reported that the ATS officials arrested Mutalik, one of the three accused still evading arrest in the case, last night. The accused was later produced before a Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, which remanded him in police custody till February 14.

Mutalik, who is a resident of Karnataka, was allegedly one of three people who planted a bomb in September 2008 on a motorcycle parked near a local mosque during the month of Ramzan.

The ATS had earlier arrested eleven persons including key witness Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel SP Purohit.

Beside, Pragya and Purohit, the other accused in the case are Rakesh Dhawde, Ramesh Upadhyay, Shyamlal Sahu, Shivnarain Kalsangra, Dayanand Pandey, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Jagdish Mhatre, Sameer Kulkarni and Ajay Rahirkar.

The blast in Malegoan on September 29, 2008, claimed lives of eight persons and injured seventy others. (ANI)