2008 Malegaon blast trial: Another witness declared hostile by NIA court
Mumbai, Mar 31: A witness in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, who had allegedly booked a hotel room for the accused days before the incident, turned hostile before a special court here on Friday.
He became the 32nd witness to be declared hostile in the case, in which BJP MP from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur is one of the key accused.
The witness, who worked at a hotel in Madhya Pradesh's Indore, had in his statement to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) claimed that he had booked rooms for the accused in the case.
However, during his deposition before special NIA judge A K Lahoti on Friday, the witness said he doesn't remember what he told the probe agency. Following which, the court declared him hostile.
The court has examined 307 witnesses until now.
Six people were killed and more than 100 injured on September 29, 2008, when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town in north Maharashtra, some 200 km from Mumbai.
The ATS probed the case initially before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over.
A total of seven accused, including Thakur and Colonel Prasad Purohit, are facing trial in the case.
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Tirupati laddu row: Samples of Ayodhya Ram temple 'prasad' sent for testing
Ayodhya, Sep 27: The Food Safety and Drug Administration Department on Friday collected samples of 'elaichi daana' or cardamom seeds being distributed as 'prasad' at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple here and sent them for testing, officials said.
The action was taken following a complaint lodged through the Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS), Assistant Food Commissioner Manik Chand Singh said.
Singh said the samples were procured from Haiderganj, where the cardamom seed offerings are prepared and sent to the Jhansi State Laboratory for comprehensive testing and evaluation.
Prakash Gupta, the officer in charge of the Ram Temple trust, revealed that on average, around 80,000 packets of cardamom seeds are distributed daily as a sacred offering.
Amid a row over the alleged presence of animal fat in laddus at the Tirupati Temple in Andhra Pradesh, the chief priest of the Ram temple here on Thursday questioned the purity of ghee being sold nationwide and said 'prasad' should be prepared under the supervision of temple priests only.
