• Pragya Singh Thakur, BJP leader and former MP, and self-styled god-woman
• Lt Col Prasad Purohit, a serving Army intelligence officer at the time of arrest
• Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhyay
• Sameer Kulkarni
• Sudhakar Chaturvedi
• Ajay Rahirkar
• Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey

The special court, presided over by Judge A.K. Lahoti, stated that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt and that the accused “deserved the benefit of doubt”. 

The Malegaon Blast: What happened?

On September 29, 2008, a powerful explosion ripped through Bhikku Chowk, a Muslim-dominated commercial area in Malegaon, Maharashtra. The bomb, fitted on an LML Freedom motorcycle bearing a fake number plate, killed six persons and injured over 100.

Initial investigations by the Maharashtra ATS, led by the late Hemant Karkare, suggested the use of RDX and ammonium nitrate. The ATS soon traced the motorcycle to Pragya Singh Thakur, who initially denied ownership.

The conspiracy, as detailed in the ATS’s 4,500-page chargesheet, involved:

• Planning meetings in Raigad Fort, Deolali, Pune, Bhopal, Indore, Faridabad, Kolkata, and Nashik
• Procurement of explosives by Lt Col Purohit from army stocks during his J&K posting
• Bomb assembly at Sudhakar Chaturvedi’s house in Deolali, whose keys were stored at the Military Intelligence office
• A radical plan to establish a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation) through Abhinav Bharat, a group allegedly floated by Purohit and others.

How the case collapsed

The Malegaon 2008 blast case was initially investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) under the leadership of the late Hemant Karkare. In January 2009, the ATS filed its primary charge sheet, naming 12 accused, including Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, both of whom had been arrested months after the explosion.

In 2011, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which eventually filed a supplementary charge sheet on May 13, 2016.

The ATS investigation had alleged that Thakur, Purohit (who was identified as the founder of Abhinav Bharat, a radical right-wing group), and others were part of a larger conspiracy aimed at taking “revenge” and instilling fear among the Muslim community. According to the ATS, the accused participated in a series of conspiracy meetings held in cities including Bhopal and Indore. It further claimed that the motorcycle used in the blast was registered in Thakur’s name, and that she had made it available for use in the attack.

In its 2009 charge sheet, the ATS invoked multiple provisions, including the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), against all the accused. 

However, a significant shift occurred after the NIA took over. Between 2011 and 2016, the agency had initially opposed any relief sought by Thakur. But in a complete reversal, the NIA’s 2016 supplementary charge sheet dropped all charges against her. While it retained several allegations against the remaining accused, invoking sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Explosive Substances Act, the agency asserted that it found no credible evidence implicating Thakur. Instead, the NIA accused the ATS of coercing witnesses into giving statements against her and recommended dropping MCOCA charges against all 12 accused.

Notably, the supplementary charge sheet was filed without informing the designated Special Public Prosecutor, Avinash Rasal, raising questions about procedural transparency.

Despite the NIA’s exoneration of Thakur, the special NIA court refused to discharge her, stating that it could not overlook the incriminating material submitted earlier by the ATS.

Despite early investigative successes, the case gradually fell apart. The court’s verdict outlines technical and evidentiary failures, but the rot runs far deeper.

(Detailed copy of the ATS charge sheet may be read here.)

1. Forensic failures and “contaminated” evidence

• No fingerprints or DNA were recovered from the blast site 
• The bike’s chassis and engine numbers were destroyed, and could not be conclusively linked to Thakur
• The court ruled that forensic samples were contaminated, making them unreliable 

2. Discredited intercepts and defective sanctions

• Phone taps of the accused were ruled inadmissible due to lack of proper legal sanction 
• The court held that two UAPA sanctions signed by the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were procedurally defective.
• MCOCA, initially invoked by the ATS for establishing an organised crime syndicate, was later dropped by the NIA in its 2016 charge sheet

Vanishing Evidence: Missing papers, missing justice

One of the darkest chapters in the case is the disappearance of key evidence:

• Confessional statements of at least 13 witnesses and two accused, recorded under CrPC 164 and MCOCA, went missing from court records by 2016, as per Mumbai Mirror
• These included accounts of meetings between Pragya Thakur and Ramji Kalsangra (an absconding accused) discussing the Malegaon blast plan.
• A special court eventually allowed the use of photocopies, over defence objections, after the originals remained untraceable despite court-to-court tracking 

Compounding this, new statements recorded by the NIA in Delhi directly contradicted the earlier ones, which now lead to exonerating the accused 

Witnesses Turn Hostile: 39 and counting

Of the 323 witnesses examined, at least 39 turned hostile, including serving Army officers and other key prosecution witnesses, as per The Hindu. Many of these had earlier confirmed:

• Attendance at planning meetings
• The ideological indoctrination of “Hindu Rashtra”
• Purohit’s and Thakur’s involvement in Abhinav Bharat

Yet under oath, they reversed their earlier testimonies.

Another 30 witnesses died before they could testify.

Critically, no prosecution for perjury was initiated, and the court did not question the pattern of defection.

Political winds and prosecutorial apathy

The prosecution’s attitude changed after 2014, a fact publicly confirmed by Rohini Salian, the initial special public prosecutor, according to Indian Express.

In 2015, Salian disclosed that she had been instructed by NIA officials to “go soft” on the accused. When she refused, she was side-lined and replaced. She recounted how:

“A senior NIA officer came and said there are instructions from higher-ups. Someone else will appear instead of you,” as reported by Indian Express. 

Salian’s replacement, Avinash Rasal, led the rest of the trial. The NIA’s 2016 supplementary chargesheet notably weakened the ATS case, dropped MCOCA, and questioned the credibility .of the confessions obtained under ATS custody — often on the basis of alleged torture/

The accused claimed their confessions were coerced. The NIA appeared to agree — without formally prosecuting the ATS for custodial abuse.

Abhinav Bharat- forgotten conspiracy

The ATS had built a robust case that Abhinav Bharat was a radical Hindutva outfit plotting systemic violence.

• Meeting transcripts, many recorded by Swami Dayanand Pandey himself, showed elaborate plans for a parallel state structure with its own flag, constitution, and army, as per a report of SabrangIndia.
• The accused discussed revenge for Muslim acts of terror, equipping themselves to create a “Hindu Rashtra” by force.
• The Bhonsala Military School in Nashik — used for training cadres — was spared scrutiny 
• Senior army officials who facilitated meetings or gave access to explosives were listed as witnesses, not accused

Despite this, the court held that the group’s structure could not be proved, and hence conspiracy could not be established.

A bigger network, never investigated

The Malegaon case was not an isolated act. It had alleged links to:

• Samjhauta Express blasts (2007)
• Ajmer Sharif Dargah blast (2007)
• Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad (2007)
• Nanded and Parbhani mosque blasts (2003–2006)

The ATS had initially argued for treating these as part of a larger Hindutva terror network, with shared ideology, funding, and personnel. This theory was quietly shelved when the NIA took over in 2011.

(Detailed report may be read here.)

What justice meant for the victims

Most of the Malegaon victims were poor Muslim daily wage workers. Their families waited 17 years for justice.

• No reparations have been announced for their suffering.
• No accountability has been fixed on investigative agencies for case mismanagement.
• No police officials have faced scrutiny for custodial torture or botched procedures

Meanwhile, the accused have moved on:

• Pragya Thakur was a sitting Member of Parliament.
• Lt Col Purohit was reinstated into the Army.
• Others have resumed public life, with some even receiving public felicitation by Hindu outfits, as reported by Sabrang India

Notably, through the judgement, the court said that families of all six victims of the blast will be given Rs 2 lakh each, and all injured victims will be given Rs 50,000 as compensation.

The real cost of acquittal

Judge Lahoti’s observation that “Terrorism has no religion as no religion advocates violence… Judgments cannot be based on morals and public perception” is legally sound. But this case was not just about legal thresholds.

It is about:

• Vanishing documents
• Reversed testimonies
• Political interference
• Institutional sabotage
• And a justice system that slowly but surely stopped caring

The acquittal may be final, but it is not exoneration. It is a legal closure of a political wound, not a factual resolution.

Conclusion: Not a verdict, but a warning

The Malegaon blast trial was never just about one bombing. It was about the integrity of our institutions, the non-negotiability of secularism, and the State’s duty to remain impartial in matters of terror.

The July 31, 2025 verdict might be a bookend to the case. But it is also an open question to the Indian republic: When evidence disappears, witnesses retreat, prosecutors fall silent, and ideology infiltrates investigation— can we still call it justice?

Related:

ARCHIVES: Hindutva Terror – The terror trail from Nanded to Malegaon and beyond

Criminal conspiracy – The ATS charge sheet in the Malegaon blast case

Malegaon blast case: Court rejects Pragya’s plea seeking exemption from appearing for trail

Malegaon Blast Accused Sadhvi Pragya may get Z-Security

PM Modi Defends Malegaon Blast Accused Sadhvi Pragya’s Candidature

The post Malegaon Acquittals: A judgement of some doubt, a trail of uneven justice appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“RIP Indian justice” was the message going around on social media the moment Pragya Thakur, among the most famous faces of “saffron terror”, got bail on Tuesday.

This is the first time Thakur has been granted bail since her arrest in October 2008 for her alleged role in the Malegaon blasts that year that killed six Muslims. Immediately after her arrest, she applied for bail under normal bail provisions only to have her application turned down right up to the Supreme Court.

After the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act was applied to the case, bail became difficult for the accused. Yet, Thakur kept on applying. She was turned down both by the trial courts and the High Court in 2012, 2014, and finally once again in November 2015.

This repeated denial of bail made it clear that given the evidence on record against Thakur, no court was inclined to give her even temporary freedom from jail.

Suddenly in May last year, the evidence against her changed drastically. From being one of the two main accused in the case, she became a non-player. How did this happen?
 

‘No objection to bail’

Two key witnesses who had given incriminating statements against Thakur to Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, the agency that initiated the investigation into the blasts, changed their statements after the National Investigative Agency re-examined them. Three others had also implicated her, but of them, one had died, one was said to be “missing”, and the third had already retracted his statement earlier.

It is not clear why the National Investigative Agency, which took over the case in 2011, suddenly decided in late 2015 to re-examine witnesses. According to media reports, the central agency was all set to file a charge sheet in the case in 2014 when Narendra Modi’s government was voted in at the Centre. The investigation was then reportedly handed over to another officer.

In May last year, the agency submitted a supplementary charge sheet declaring that there was no evidence against Pragya Thakur and five others and dropping Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act charges against all 12 accused. This was a green signal for the accused to apply for bail.

In June, the National Investigation Agency told the special NIA court that it had no objection to Pragya Thakur’s bail.
 

Normally, once the prosecution says it has no objection to the accused getting bail, the court does not refuse bail, even if in its view, there exists a prima facie case against the accused. How important the prosecution’s say is can be seen from another case where the accused was a prominent person. In 2001, Ram Dev Tyagi, former Mumbai Police Commissioner and prime accused in the Suleman Usman Bakery case of the 1992-’93 Mumbai riots, was granted bail by sessions judge Abhay Thipsay despite the judge’s observation that there existed a prima facie case of murder against Tyagi. At that time, on being repeatedly asked by the court, the special public prosecutor kept replying that he had no objection to Tyagi’s bail.

But for Thakur, things did not go as expected. Taking everyone by surprise, the special NIA court refused bail to her in June despite the investigating agency’s no objection. Not just that, presiding judge SD Tekale asked why the agency had re-examined witnesses. He pointed out that the Anti-Terrorism Squad investigation had to be considered along with the National Investigation Agency’s, and that Thakur had been present at a meeting held in Bhopal to plan the blasts, and also owned the motorcycle used in the blasts.

Judge Tekale also allowed an intervener to oppose Thakur’s bail application. Malegaon resident Sayyed Nisar’s 19-year-old son was killed in the 2008 blasts. The High Court bail order records that the NIA court noted that since no one was objecting to the accused getting bail, in order to have a “fair hearing” on the point of bail, it would be appropriate to give an opportunity to the intervener who was the “real aggrieved person”.
 

In the Bombay High Court

On the same grounds, the Bombay High Court also allowed Nisar to intervene when Thakur appealed against the special court’s rejection of her bail.

The 78-page order signed by Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi of the Bombay High Court, rejected the defence’s arguments on two grounds, but ruled in Thakur’s favour on the crucial ground of whether she deserves bail for her role in the crime. The reasons are:

• The judges doubted that the motorcycle used for the blasts was the one owned by Thakur. Presuming it was, they pointed out that “much prior” to the blasts, it was being used by another accused.
• The judges found contradictions in witness statements against Thakur. While two witnesses told the Anti-Terrorism Squad that she had offered to provide men to execute the blast, two others present at the planning meeting in Bhopal said nothing incriminating against her. The court noted that the former two had retracted their statements when re-examined by the NIA, and also alleged torture by the Anti-Terrorism Squad. But even without taking into account the retractions and allegations of torture, the contradictions in the statements, says the order, are enough.

Hence, says the order, “it cannot be said that there are reasonable grounds for believing that accusations made against her are prima facie true”. The judges also give consideration to Thakur’s defence that she is a woman suffering from cancer. This plea had been rejected by all courts earlier.
Once a court says there is no prima facie evidence against an accused, the latter files for discharge. Thakur has already done so.
 

Comparisons with Rubina Memon

This case is being compared to the Rubina Memon case. Memon was sentenced to life imprisonment in the March 12, 1993, bomb blasts case because a van used to plant bombs was registered in her name. The court rejected her argument that she had shifted to Dubai eight months before the blasts, and had no idea what the van was being used for.

But there is a difference between the two cases. As an under trial, Memon remained on bail almost through the entire 12 years of the trial, though the draconian Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act was applied to the case. When she was convicted in 2006, she was out on bail. She remained in custody for a year before she got interim bail again. However, after she was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007, Memon has been denied bail and even furlough.
 

In contrast, Pragya Thakur has been in custody as an under trial from the time she was arrested nine years ago.

There is another comparison which indeed makes the Bombay High Court’s grant of bail to Pragya Thakur unsettling. Innocent Muslims have remained in jail for periods ranging from five to 14 years on false terror charges, without bail, till their acquittal. Except in two cases, no agency has come forward to further investigate the false cases against them. Ironically, in one of the two cases, it was the National Investigation Agency that proved to be their saviour, when it found Hindutva terrorists were responsible for the 2006 Malegaon blasts, instead of the nine Muslims arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad.
 

In defence of the judiciary

But can all these factors be used to cast a slur on the judiciary? The same judges who granted Pragya Thakur bail, refused bail to her co-accused Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit. After the NIA court dropped Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act charges in the case in 2009, the Bombay High Court restored them in 2010. In 2015, the Supreme Court that denied Purohit and Thakur bail, asked the NIA court to hear their bail applications on merits, without applying Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act provisions. Again, it was a sessions judge who discharged the Muslims falsely accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts, though the National Investigating Agency opposed their discharge.

In 2015, Rohini Salian, NIA special public prosecutor in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, had gone public about being asked to “go soft” on the accused ever since the BJP government came to power. Reacting to Thakur’s bail, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia appealed to the government to withdraw all cases against Hindus in jail for such cases, instead of “single case tokenism”.

So, instead of blaming the judiciary, should we not be asking ourselves why we repose so much faith in our investigative agencies? Be it the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terrorism Squad or the National Investigation Agency, all of them have demonstrated that they simply follow the directives of the party in power at the Centre.

Instead of “RIP Indian judiciary”, the social media message should have been “RIP Indian investigative agencies”.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

The post Why blame judiciary for granting Pragya Thakur bail when investigative agencies show no spine? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image: Jayshankar Menon

In a bid to fix quick responsibility following any acts of “terror”, the law enforcing agencies abduct persons deemed suspicious (the testimonies specifically point out to kidnapping or abduction by the police and not arrest), what follows is a media trial wherein the fourth estate act as faithful stenographers of the state. Thus public memory remains prejudiced and fixed onto that moment of televised castigation of people even before the trial has been concluded.

The media, investigating agency or the judiciary have no fear of any consequences and therefore they are able to implicate the innocent through the systematic abrogation of the criminal justice system. In institutionalising impunity, those who keep guard to defend the state from its ostensible predefined enemy continue to remain outside the purview of law even after a series of acquittals. Thus, the arbitrariness and lawlessness of those responsible for enforcing law gets exposed to show the inherent bias and throws light on routinisation of “wrongful prosecution” as a means to portray that the rule of law is being adhered to, even in extraordinary cases of terrorism. As opposed to the spectacle of arrest of an alleged terrorist, their discharge following a number of years, sometimes decades, is not considered a matter of importance. Their struggle largely remains invisibilised.

Taking cognizance of the above, India’s first People’s Tribunal on Acquitted Innocents was organized on October 2 at the Constitution Club of India to call attention to unrepresented and unheard voices of those wronged by the system. The Tribunal consisted of a jury headed by a retired judge, AP Shah along with other distinguished members from the legal fraternity as well as the larger civil society. This event was facilitated by Innocence Network India, which is an all India network of individuals and organisations facilitated and supported by JTSA, Quill Foundation, Peoples’ Campaign against Politics of Terror, Association for Protection of Civil Rights, Aman Biradari, Karvaan and others.

All testimonies revealed a sordid ordeal of brutal torture, the duress under which a confession is obtained, plantation and fabrication of evidence, long-drawn legal proceedings, hostility of jail inmates, constant humiliation and helplessness. The stigma of belonging to the family of a “terrorist” affected their families in ways which iis difficult to reverse. Their little kids were rebuked in school, their elderly parents had to arrange for their legal assistance despite their ailing health. The long wait to see their loved ones walk free took a toll on them.

Md. Nisaruddin was falsely implicated in 1994 and spent 23 years in jail before he was acquitted. His brother, Zahiruddin, who was accused in the same case, spent 14 years in jail. In their absence, their father, “passed away in distress, mother went into depression and the society shunned them.” This is not a one-off case of wrongful prosecution; there are others like them who have spent years languishing in jails, only to be acquitted later for the want of evidence. Senior journalist Iftikhar Geelani, Dr. Faarog Makhdoomi from Malegaon, Shoeb Jagirdar from Jalna, Md. Aamir Khan from Delhi, Dr. Md. Yunus, Haji Md. Salees, Syed Wasuf Haider from Kanpur, Sanauddin from Karnataka, Abdul Wahid and Zubair Ahmed from Maharashtra, who participated in the Peoples’ Tribunal, had similar heart-wrenching stories of abduction, torture, castigation and acquittal to tell.

In the Aurangabad Arms Haul Case, the main accused Adbul Wahid was a driver by profession. He was called to the police station for questioning and was later produced before the media as the man who drove the terrorists around in the city. It still surprised Abdul Azim that the policemen asked him to “rise up to the occasion and do something for his country”. When he resisted, his women relatives were brought to the police station and were threatened of sexual assault in his presence to obtain his signature on his “confession”. In most of the cases, the confession formed bulk of evidence against the accused which was obtained through custodial torture. Victims were subjected to numerous third degree methods of physical harm like electric shocks on private parts, water boarding, gassing, beatings, stretching of legs for a prolonged period of time.

Image: Jayshankar Menon

The narration of every case, brought out persisting struggle of everyday life which is spent amidst social isolation and continuous surveillance. The livid experiences of spending a number of years in incarceration takes a toll on victims and their families. Loss of livelihood opportunities accompanied by shrunken avenues of employment, loss of prime of their youth, multi-layered psychological effects of staying away from their families make it difficult for them to blend easily with the mainstream. The trials run into years and some of the accused have languished in jail for as long as 23 years; before they were acquitted. Their acquittal doesn’t mean a return to normalcy. Since there is no acknowledgement and recognition of the wrong done, their lives are caught in the interminable cobweb of suspicion and enduring struggles to build their lives and support their families.

Everyone present in the hall was moved during the tribunal by these personal accounts. In their preliminary observations, the jury emphasised on the need to fix criminal culpability on investigative officers for wrongful prosecution and that this provision must be made to supersede Section 197 of the CrPC that requires sanction from government departments before a case can be registered. Further, they also pointed out to the systematic ways in which, the entire prosecution process is oriented towards implicating persons from a minority community. They stressed upon the urgency for creating a legislative framework in consonance with India's commitment to ICCPR's article 14 (6) which states that:

When a person has by a final decision been convicted of a criminal offence and when subsequently his conviction has been reversed or he has been pardoned on the ground that a new or newly discovered fact shows conclusively that there has been a miscarriage of justice, the person who has suffered punishment as a result of such conviction shall be compensated according to law, unless it is proved that the non-disclosure of the unknown fact in time is wholly or partly attributable to him.

Impunity is not only political and legal, but also moral. The public at large remains detached from the outcome of these cases which contributes to the continuing ostracisation of the victims. Knowledge and public recognition of what happened is important for individual closure. The Tribunal was an effort to publically acknowledge the innocence of these men who were at the receiving end of systematic and institutional prejudice. Through recognising the harm done, the Tribunal sought to make not only the state accountable, but also put onus on the society to orient themselves towards shaping their lives in a holistic manner. It brought out that by dusting off their responsibility of rehabilitation, reparation and fixing culpability for wrongful prosecution, the state and its agencies are wanting to keep a community in the shade of criminalisation.
 
(Surya Ghildiyal completed her MA in Conflict and Peace Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia in 2014 and currently works in the development sector. 

Preetika Nanda completed her MA in Conflict and Peace Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia in 2014. She is currently researching and documenting mass enforced disappearances during the decade-long conflict in Punjab.)

The post Life After Acquittal: Narratives at a People’s Tribunal appeared first on SabrangIndia.