Mumbai: Charges have been framed against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five others by a special court in Mumbai on Tuesday under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and several sections in the September 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.
Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court framed charges against the accused persons under the UAPA. The accused have been charged with being part of a terrorist act, and under IPC they have been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder. The trial will begin as the charges have been framed.
The other 5 accused apart from Lt Col Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya are Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.
It must be recalled that six people were killed and over 100 injured in the blast near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
Saffron accused had received a major jolt on Monday when the 2-member bench of Mumbai High Court refused to give stay order. The lawyers engaged by Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra Abdul Mateen Shaikh, Shahid Nadeem and Sajid Quraishi opposed the appeal for a stay order and told the court that Supreme Court and high court have ordered the speedy hearing of the case hence further stay should not be given.