The National Investigation Agency (NIA) informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it doesn’t need custody of Lt Colonel Shrikant Purohit in 2008 Malegaon blast case as it has already filed a chargesheet in the case. The agency told the bench of Justices R K Agrawal and A M Sapre that they were not pressing any more for the custody of accused in the case.
NIA sources told TOI, “Since we have already questioned Lt Colonel Purohit in the Judicial Custody in the past and filed chargesheet against him, we dropped our previous request of seeking his police custody”.
“The investigation in 2008 Malegaon blast is already over so we don’t need him,” said the officer.
His advocate Neela Gokhale told TOI on Monday, “The high court had granted custody to NIA which Purohit had challenged in the Supreme Court. Now, NIA informed the SC that they don’t require his custody”.
Purohit, a former Maratha Light Infantry officer who later joined military intelligence, was accused by police of being an active member of Abhinav Bharat, a radical Hindu group, and stealing 60 kg of RDX from the army, a portion of which was allegedly used in the Malegaon blast. NIA also probed his role thoroughly, particularly in 2007 Samjhauta train blast and Malegaon 2008 blast.
The anti-terror probe agency has already given him a clean chit in the Samjhauta blast while MCOCA charges were dropped against him and other accused persons in Malegaon case.
The agency officials, however, remained tightlipped on whether they will oppose his bail in lower court or not.
NIA’s probe into the so called ‘Hindu-terror’ cases lately had setbacks with a Jaipur court recently acquitting Swami Aseemanand in Ajmer Dargah blast and giving him bail in Hyderabad Mecca Masjid blast.
Courtesy: Times of India
