TCN News
The High Court of Bombay granted to four accused in the Malegaon Blast case of 2006 on Friday by releasing them on cash bail of Rs. 50,000 each.
The bench comprising Justice A Mahanty and A M Badar also instructed the accused to attend the special court during the trial and shall not contact the witness or tamper with evidence.
The four accused Dhan Singh, Lokesh Sharma, Manohar Narwaria and Rajendra Chaudhary have been in jail since 2013 when they were arrested. Their earlier pleas for bail had been rejected.
The accused were booked by National Investigation Agency (NIA) which took over the probe from CBI who had taken over from the ATS (Anti-Terrorism squad) of Maharashtra.
The ATS had arrested 9 youth from the Muslim community and later when the CBI took over, they too followed the same procedure of probe holding the 9 youth responsible. However after the NIA, after their investigation concluded that the blasts were carried out by people from the majority community.
Subsequently, the special court accepted the stand of NIA, who had dropped the charges against the youth and discharged them in 2016, ten years after their arrest.
On September 8, 2006, during the Friday prayers, a series of blasts took place outside Hamidiya masjid as bobs tied to bicycles went off killing 37 persons and injuring more than 200 persons.
These blasts sent shock waves amongst the Muslims and even as they were recovering from these blasts, another major blast took place in September 2008 when bomb tied to Pragya Singh’s motorcycle went off killing 6 persons and injuring 101 persons in Bhiku Chowk of Malegaon.
The trials are in process for both these cases.