A Special National Investigative Agency (NIA) Court in Mumbai has acquitted all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon Blasts case. The verdict comes after nearly 17 years. The accused, including former BJP MLA Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit, were out on bail.
On September 29, 2008, blasts occurred in the Malegaon town of Nashik district that killed six people, leaving over 100 injured. The NIA court has announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to each deceased victim and Rs 50,000 to every injured.
The special court found that the motorcycle's chassis number, which was allegedly used in the blast, was wiped out. There was no reliable evidence to prove that it was owned by Pragya Thakur. Further, observing that she had become a sanyasi (renunciant) in 2006, distancing herself from all material possessions.
It also stated that the prosecution could successfully establish that there was a blast in Malegaon. However, it could not prove that the bomb was planted in the motorcycle recovered from the blast site.
The court further observed that the crime scene was contaminated as the blast site was not properly barricaded after the incident.
It noted that the injuries to the victims were partially established. Moreover, the number of injured persons was found to be 95, which was earlier claimed to be 101.
There was no evidence found that suggested that Lt Col Prasad Purohit had RDX stored at his residence, or transported it from Kashmir, or assembled it there.
It was the holy month of Ramzan, two days before Eid on 29th September 2008, with ongoing festivities of Navratri. An explosive device, said to be tied to a motorcycle, detonated near a mosque in Malegaon's crowded Bhiku Chowk area in Nashik. The blast site was merely 75 meters from the Police Chowki.
The explosion killed six people, one of the deceased was a 10-year-old girl. Over 100 people were left injured. After this, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested 12 suspects in connection with the case, which included Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pandey, Retd. Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, and Sudhakar Chaturvedi.
The ATS Chargesheet filed on January 29, 2009, was comprised of 4,528 pages. It had alleged that the motorcycle that was used in the blast belonged to Pragya Thakur, while Col. Purohit brought the RDX from Jammu & Kashmir and had stored it in his house.
The special court has acquitted all the accused of various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC), such as committing a terrorist act, conspiring to commit a terrorist act, criminal conspiracy, murder, and promoting enmity among religious groups.
ATS had alleged the involvement of "saffron extremists", further linking them to other blast cases. The case was later transferred to the NIA in 2011. In 2017, the special court ordered that the seven accused would face a trial.
In 2018, terror and murder charges were formally framed against seven accused, including Purohit, Thakur, and five others. When the trial commenced, there were 323 prosecution witnesses, of whom 37 turned hostile.
Five different judges presided over the judgment. The final arguments were concluded in April 2025, with the court briefly adjourned from May 8. And finally, Justice AK Lahoti delivered the judgment.
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