Malegaon case: Court allows Thakur's plea for exemption from appearance on Tuesday

A special NIA court allowed the application of Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur for the exemption from appearance on Tuesday in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast case. As the BJP leader was not present before the court, Special NIA Judge Vinod Padalkar adjourned the hearing in the matter till Thursday.

She is likely to appear before the court later this week, her lawyer said. The court had yesterday directed Thakur and all other accused in the case to appear before it once a week.

Judge Padalkar while asking Thakur to be present before the court, had referred to a recent Supreme Court order which said hearing in criminal cases against public representatives be expedited. Besides the Bhopal MP, the other accused are Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Ajay Rahirkar, Sameer Kulkarni and Sudhakar Chaturvedi.

They have been charged under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The charges include sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA and sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups) of the IPC.

The accused have also been charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act. On September 29, 2018, six people were killed and a dozen others were injured when a bomb placed on a motorcycle exploded in Maharashtra's Malegaon city. 

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