Mumbai: Lt. Colonel Prasad Purohit has approached the Bombay high court, challenging the order passed by the special NIA court rejecting the discharge application filed by him in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts’ case. The grounds are that Col Purohit was informing his seniors about details of meetings and was gathering intelligence for the army and for the same reason, he had to act like he was with the accused persons.
The other grounds are that there was no conversation about bomb blasts in any of the meetings, and the telephonic conversation between him and Retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay could not be considered as that was after the blast and the conspiracy ended. Col Purohit’s lawyer Amit Ghagh confirmed the news and said that the appeal would be heard in due course.
It was also pointed out that many witnesses had already retracted their statements given to the ATS saying that they were made under duress. Another reason cited in the plea was that MCOCA had been dropped from the case and the statements of the co-accused could not be considered against Col Purohit and there was no evidence against him to show that he was involved in the bomb blasts’ conspiracy.
