The Bombay High Court on Wednesday quashed an order passed by a special court for framing of charges against four persons accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case, The Indian Express reported.
They were the last remaining persons accused in the matter.
The special court had in September ordered the charges to be framed against Manohar Narwaria, Rajendra Chaudhary, Dhan Singh and Lokesh Sharma for murder and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
The High Court on Wednesday allowed their appeals against the special court’s order, PTI reported.
On September 8, 2006, bomb blasts took place near a mosque and a cemetery in Maharashtra’s Malegaon. The blasts killed 31 persons and injured more than 300.
The state’s Anti-Terrorism Squad had arrested nine Muslim men in connection with the blasts, PTI reported.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over the probe in 2017, had also named them as the accused in the matter, The Indian Express reported.
However, the National Investigation Agency, which began its probe in 2011, had said that the Muslim men were innocent and had suspected members of Hindutva organisations of having carried out the blasts, the newspaper reported.
The prosecution’s change of stance was based on a statement made in 2010 by Aseemanand, a person accused in other cases, The Indian Express reported. Aseemanand had alleged that members of Hindutva organisations had planted the bombs, Live Law reported.
The National Investigation Agency had then charged the four men, among others.
Aseemanand later retracted his statement and was acquitted in other blast cases in which he had been accused. The courts hearing the other matters had rejected Aseemanand’s confession as having been unreliable.
During the hearing in the High Court in the present case, the counsel representing the four men had argued that there were no eyewitnesses in the matter, The Indian Express reported. The lawyer also contended that a confession that no other court was willing to accept could not be used to frame the four men.
They had been arrested in 2013 and had been granted bail in 2019.
The nine Muslim men had been discharged in 2016. An appeal against the discharge has not been heard since 2019, The Indian Express reported.
The case is not linked to the 2008 Malegaon blast in which Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pragya Singh Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit and five others were acquitted in July.
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