Mumbai, January 23: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Monday challenged a special court order restraining her from travelling by air or by first class in a train for a court hearing in Bhopal next month, her lawyer said here.
The Sadhvi filed a petition in the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel by air or first class by train to Bhopal on grounds of her frail health and security concerns, her counsel Ganesh Sovani said.
“She has also expressed willingness to bear the entire cost of the flight or first class train travel for herself and the accompanying police escort,” Sovani told IANS.
She is required to remain present for a court hearing in Bhopal Feb 2 in a case filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Her petition before the Bombay High Court is expected to come up for hearing shortly, he said.
She had Jan 16 filed an application before the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court seeking directions to the Maharashtra government and the NIA to allow her to travel to Bhopal by flight or first class train, at her expense if required.
Sovani pointed out that when she had travelled to Madhya Pradesh in the past, she had been taken in a second class unreserved coach, carried on a stretcher which was placed near a toilet.
Owing to her severe back pain, irritable bowel movements and other health problems, she was greatly inconvenienced during the 18-hour journey and could not get off the stretcher, necessitating the judge to come out of the court and pronounce his order in the ambulance.
However, the special MCOCA court Jan 21 rejected the application on grounds that the jail manual did not provide for such a request.
Currently lodged in the Byculla District Jail, the Sadhvi claimed that the special MCOCA court had March 29 last year permitted her to travel to Madhya Pradesh by air and it was giving undue emphasis on the jail manual rather than her health and security concerns.
On her return trip, the Madhya Pradesh government had taken care of her air travel arrangements to Mumbai, she said.
She added that if she travelled in unsafe conditions, she could be “a soft target” for radical elements.
—-IANS—-