Recently granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Pragya Singh Thakur has alleged that she was framed in the case by Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to target top RSS leaders.
“I was targeted in false cases as I and my family had strong RSS links. I still remember how the Mumbai ATS tortured me for 24 days in custody in 2008 and regularly forced me to name top RSS leaders in the cases,” alleged Thakur while talking to the New Indian Express.
While Thakur was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case on April 25, 2017, a Dewas court had acquitted her of criminal charges in the 2007 Sunil Joshi murder case in February 2017.
Presently under treatment at the ayurveda hospital in Bhopal, Pragya Singh recounted her grilling. “I was picked up from Surat in October 2008 by ATS and taken to Mumbai for questioning. While the first 13 days were spent in illegal custody, the next 11 days were spent in legal custody of the ATS,” said Thakur.
“For 24 days I survived on water. I was beaten brutally throughout my custody. I was beaten so much that my hands and fingers regularly developed swelling. Spotting swelling in my hands and fingers, the ATS men put them in warm water and asked me to keep on pressing paper to reduce the swelling,” alleged Pragya Singh Thakur.
“Throughout the interrogation, the ATS men asked me why I triggered the blast in Malegaon. When I repeatedly told them that I knew nothing about any blast, they named top RSS leaders and tried hard to make me concede that the RSS leaders were involved in the terror acts,” Pragya Singh Thakur further alleged.
“The target of the interrogators working at the behest of the Congress and UPA government was never the BJP, but instead the RSS, as it gives the nation nationalist leaders like Narendra Modi,” said Thakur.
She also alleged that Congress general secretary, Digvijaya Singh, was the brain behind the conspiracy to frame her.
“I was a student leader of ABVP when Singh was the MP CM. I used to regularly stage movements against his government and never compromised, owing to which he hatched the conspiracy to implicate me,” alleged Thakur.
When queried about having been booked for the December 2007 murder of close associate and former RSS worker Sunil Joshi, the Malegaon blast accused gave a clean chit to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
“The BJP government was in power when I was booked in Sunil Joshi’s murder case, but the case was lodged against me at the behest of the Congress which ruled the Centre. The present CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan never obstructs any kind of probe.”
“Three months before I was booked in the murder case in Dewas (MP) I was told by personnel of central investigation agencies in hospital in Mumbai that my name would be added in the case, despite me having no role in it. How come the probe agency men had a whiff of it, if the central government was not involved,” said Thakur.
State Congress spokesperson K K Mishra reacted sharply to Thakur’s allegations saying “she is making false statements, everyone knows who were involved in conspiring and triggering blasts. Even RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had in 2011 stated that several extremist elements had made their way into the Sangh fold, will she deny that also?” said Mishra.
Courtesy: The New Indian Expres
