All Malegaon blast case accused,Including Pragya Thakur asked to appear before court once a week
Mumbai: A special court here conducting trial in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Friday directed all the seven accused, including BJP's Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, to appear before it once a week.
Upset over the frequent absence of the accused during the trial, NIA court judge Vinod Padalkar gave this direction. He also directed that exemption sought without cogent reasons will be rejected.
The court, at present, is recording the testimony of the witnesses in the case.The matter will be next heard on May 20.
Besides Purohit and Thakur, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni are other accused in the case. They are all out on bail.
In October last year, the court had framed charges in the case against all the seven accused for terror activities, criminal conspiracy and murder, among others.
The accused face trial under sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
They were charged under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA.
Under the IPC, they were charged under sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).
The accused were also charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act.
On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from here in north Maharashtra.
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Trump’s fresh threat to bomb Iran amid reports of deal to end war
Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened Iran with more bombing if it doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz, amid a report that the warring sides were nearing an agreement to end the war.
US media outlet Axios reported, quoting US officials and two other sources, that the US and Iran were getting close to a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations.
The US expects Iranian responses on several key points over the next 48 hours, Axios reported, adding that nothing has been agreed yet. This was the closest the parties had been to an agreement since the war began.
"Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
"If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before," Trump said.
According to Axios, the deal would involve Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the US agreeing to lift its sanctions and release billions in frozen Iranian funds, and both sides lifting restrictions around transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
It said many of the terms laid out in the memo would be contingent on a final agreement being reached, leaving the possibility of renewed war or an extended limbo in which the hot war has stopped, but nothing is truly resolved.
