Malegaon Blast Case: Former BJP MP Pragya Thakur, All Accused Acquitted

Former BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya and six others have been acquitted in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case by the NIA Court on Thursday.

"Upon comprehensive evaluation, the prosecution has failed to bring any cogent evidence and the evidence is riddled with inconsistencies," the Bar and Bench Court quoted the court as saying. MP Sadhvi Pragya, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhankar Dhar Dwivedi (Shankaracharya) and Sameer Kulkarni are the accused in the case.

"Terrorism has no religion because no religion can advocate violence. The Court cannot convict anyone merely on perception and moral evidence; there has to be cogent evidence," the NIA court noted.

The court has also ordered the Maharashtra government to award Rs 2 lakh compensation to the families of the victims and Rs 50,000 compensation to the injured.

'All bail bonds of the accused are cancelled and sureties are discharged," the NIA special court stated. The trial, which started in 2018, got over on April 19, 2025, and the case was reserved for judgement.

On September 29, 2008, a blast killed six persons and left over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque. "No sketch of spot was done by the investigation officer while doing panchnama. No finger print , dump data or anything else was collected for the spot. The samples were contaminated so reports can't be conclusive and relied upon," the court added.

The case was initially probed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before being transferred to the NIA in 2011.

The trial in the case began in 2018 after the court framed charges against the seven accused.

The charges comprised UAPA sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) and various IPC sections, including 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups), according to a report.

During the trial, the prosecution presented 323 witnesses, of whom 37 turned hostile.

The NIA court stated that there was no evidence of the funds of the Abhinav Bharat's organization being used for terror activities.

On the court's verdict, advocate Ranjit Nayar, accused's lawyer told ANI: "The accused have been acquitted in this case. I was the advocate for accused number 11, Sudhakar Chaturvedi. The Court said that there is no proof of the owner of the mobile phones and vehicles found at the spot. ATS investigated this case. The Court said that phones were tapped without any sanction... NCP-Congress was in power back then. They had to do their political gains... Now everything is clear that there are no witnesses against the accused..."

With inputs from agencies.