2008 Malegaon blast case: Bombay HC seeks untruncated witnesses' statements

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday adjourned till August 2 the hearing on the application moved by Prasad Purohit, an accused in the Malegaon blast case, seeking untruncated copies of the witnesses' statements that are part of the charge sheet.

The matter was adjourned by a division bench of Justice Indrajit Mohanty and Justice AM Badar after the counsel for the National Investigation Agency sought a week's time to decide on the application moved by the accused. The agency also sought time to provide the list of those prosecution witnesses whose names have been truncated from the charge sheet.

"Names of the witnesses were given in International terror cases such as 26/11 Mumbai attacks and 1993 Mumbai blasts. The truncated list of witnesses was even given to Kasab. Why can we not get it?" counsel for Purohit contended before the court.

Sameer Kulkarni, who is representing himself in the case, argued that the agency is not following the orders of the high court.

"Examination of un-truncated witnesses has also not been conducted, which is further delaying the matter," he contended.

Besides Kulkarni and Purohit, BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Ajay Rahirkar and Sudhakar Chaturvedi are also accused in the case.

They have been charged under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Explosive Substances Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

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

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.