Malegaon blast: Pragya Thakur faces new warrant after skipping court date again
Mumbai, Nov 13: A special court here on Wednesday issued a fresh bailable warrant against former BJP MP Pragya Thakur, a prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, as she failed to appear before it citing health issues.
This was the second warrant issued this month against Thakur by the special court for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases.
On November 5, the court had issued a warrant against her for failing to attend the proceedings, and directed her to appear on November 13.
On Wednesday, Thakur's lawyer J P Mishra told the court that she could not appear as she was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Bhopal.
He also submitted related medical records.
The judge then issued a fresh bailable warrant of Rs 10,000 and directed her to remain present in the court on December 2.
The trial is at the fag end, and the court has repeatedly asked all the accused to remain present for daily hearings.
Six people were killed and more than 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town in north Maharashtra about 200 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.
Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit and five others are on trial in the case for their alleged involvement in the blast conspiracy.
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Need not bring slogans like batenge toh katenge to Maha, my politics is different: Pankaja Munde
Mumbai: As the Maharashtra Assembly elections are just around the corner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has ramped up its campaign with the slogan ‘batenge toh katenge’ (If divided, we perish), deployed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, which has sparked a political row. However, BJP MLC Pankaja Munde has voiced strongly that she will not support such slogans although she belongs to the saffron party.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Pankaja stated that her politics is different. “I won’t support it just because I belong to the same party. My belief is that we should work on development alone. A leader’s job is to make every living person on this land their own. Therefore, we need not bring any such topic to Maharashtra,” she said.
Pankaja, Munde added UP CM Adityanath used the slogan “in a different context and in the political situation of that land”. She cleared that the meaning of the slogan is not what they are using in Maharashtra.
Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been using the slogan "Ek hain toh safe hain" (Together, we are safe), which his rivals argue is merely a rephrasing of the same idea.
Ajit Pawar suggested last week that the politics represented by slogans like “Batenge toh katenge” will not work in Maharashtra. “I have said this many times that it will not work in Maharashtra. It may work in UP, Jharkhand or other places,” asserted Pawar.
