2008 Malegaon blast case: Pragya Thakur challenges ‘interference’ by victim’s father

Pragya Thakur, accused in the September 2008 Malegaon blast case, approached the Bombay high court challenging the order of a special court, which permitted one of the blast victim’s relatives to intervene in the trial and assist the prosecution.

Thakur asked the high court to quash the order passed by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in February, calling it “erroneous in law”.

She added that there was no need for a ‘third party’ — in this case, Nisar Bilal — to intervene in the case. Thakur, in her plea, said she was “already a victim of false implication by the prosecution”. She added that Bilal filed his intervention application with “malafide intentions and ulterior motives.”

On Friday, a division bench comprising justices V K Tahilramani and M S Karnik took up Thakur’s plea for the first hearing and issued a notice to Bilal.

The high court has asked Bilal to respond by the next hearing. It is likely to take up the matter for hearing in June.

Pragya was arrested in 2008 soon after the blast. The Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad named her one of the primary conspirators of the blast, in which killed six people and injured 100.

However, the NIA took over the probe in 2011. In 2016, it filed a charge sheet, in which it gave Thakur a clean chit.

Earlier this week, another bench of the high court granted bail to Thakur, observing that it had found no prima facie evidence against her. The court, while granting bail to Thakur, relied on the fact that two witnesses, Swami Amurtanand Devtirth and Rakesh Dhawade, who had first implicated her, had retracted their statements.