Sadhvi Pragya Singh told to appear before court once a week in Malegaon blasts case
Mumbai, May 18: A special court here conducting trial in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, directed all the seven accused, including BJP's Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, to appear before it once a week.
Upset over the frequent absence of the accused during the trial, NIA court judge Vinod Padalkar gave this direction.
He
also
directed
that
exemption
sought
without
cogent
reasons
will
be
rejected.
The
court,
at
present,
is
recording
the
testimony
of
the
witnesses
in
the
case.The
matter
will
be
next
heard
on
May
20.
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Besides Purohit and Thakur, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni are other accused in the case. They are all out on bail.
In October last year, the court had framed charges in the case against all the seven accused for terror activities, criminal conspiracy and murder, among others.
The accused face trial under sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
They were charged under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA.
Under the IPC, they were charged under sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).
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The accused were also charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act.
On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from here in north Maharashtra.