Sadhvi Pragya, 8 others to be produced before MCOCA court tomorrow

Mumbai, Nov 23 (UNI) Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, suspended Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and seven others, accused in the September 29 Malegaon bomb blast, will be produced before MCOCA court for remand here tomorrow.

Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), probing the Malegaon bomb blast case, has invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case on Thursday last.

While producing Sudhakar Chaturvedi, an accused in the case on Friday for remand, Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian had moved an application seeking production warrants against the nine accused, who are at present in judicial custody. Chaturvedi, an active member of Hindu radical outfit Abhinav Bharat, was remanded to police custody till December three.

MCOCA Judge Y D Shinde issued production warrants against Pragya, Purohit, Shamlal Sahu, Shivnarayan Singh, Ajay Rahirkar, Jagdish Mahtre, Rakesh Dhawade, Sameer Kulkarni and ex-army man Ramesh Upadhyay.

In the bomb blast, six people were killed and several others injured. The first breakthrough was made in this case on October 23 with the arrests of the Sadhvi and her two associates Sahu and Singh. Subsequently, others were arrested by ATS. Thus, the total number of the arrested accused in this case has gone up to 11.

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