Malegaon blast case: BJP MP Pragya Thakur appears in court
Mumbai: BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast case of 2008, appeared before a special NIA court here on Monday.
Thakur remained in the box reserved for accused persons at the back of the courtroom along with four other co-accused in the case, which is being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
On December 19, 2020, Special Judge P R Site had given "last chance" to Thakur to appear before the court. He had expressed displeasure over her failure to appear before the court twice last month.
Earlier, in 2019, the court had said the seven accused persons in the case, all of whom are out on bail, should appear before it at least once a week.
On Monday, Thakur and four other accused - Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Sameer Kulkarni, Ramesh Upadhyay and Sudhakar Chaturvedi - appeared before the court.
The two other accused - Ajay Rahirkar and Sudhakar Dwivedi - were absent.
One witness was also present in the court, but his cross-examination could not be done as the advocate for accused Dwivedi was not available.
The court posted the trial for hearing on Tuesday.
After the regular functioning of the court resumed in November last year, following easing of the coronavirus- induced restrictions, the court had directed all the seven accused in the case to remain present before it on December 3.
However, most of the accused, including Thakur, skipped the court that day, citing the pandemic situation. The court then asked them to appear before it on December 19.
Thakur again did not appear that day and her lawyer told the court that she was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for treatment.
The court then directed Thakur to appear before it in January 4, and said this was the last chance given to her.
Thakur, who is the BJP MP from Bhopal, had last appeared before the court in June 2019 after it ordered the seven accused to remain present once a week.
However, she had sought exemption from appearance on various occasions since then.
The trial in the case came to a halt in March last year following the lockdown imposed across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, the special NIA court resumed the trial. So far, around 140 witnesses out of the total 400 have been examined.
On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and over 100 others injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went-off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra.
The court framed terror charges against Purohit, Thakur and five other accused in October 2018.
The accused in the case have been charged under Sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
They have also been charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups), and relevant provisions of the Explosive Substances Act.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
