Pragya Thakur Claims She was Tortured to Name Modi, Adityanath in Malegaon Blast Case
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 2: After a former Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) officer, the former BJP member of the Lok Sabha Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur made yet another stunning claim of Saturday alleging that the investigators in the Malegaon bomb blast had tried to coerce her into naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and others as involved in the Malegaon blast.
Ms Thakur was acquitted in the case along with Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit and five others by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Thursday. The case was initially investigated by the Maharashtra ATS before handing it over to the NIA.
The former MP’s claim comes on the heels of the judgment in the case revealing that a witness who had turned hostile had also claimed that he was forced to implicate Yogi Adityanath and four others linked to the RSS, including Indresh Kumar, a senior member of the organisation.
Mehboob Mujawar, a former Maharashtra ATS member, had on Friday alleged that senior officers in the squad had ordered him to arrest RSS chief Bhagwat, but he had refused to obey. The court had rejected these allegations, but that did not stop Mr Mujawar from reiterating them on Friday, claiming that the objective behind the order given by his seniors was to take the probe in the “wrong direction” and make it appear like a “saffron terror case.”
On Saturday, Ms Thakur said, “They made me name several people, including (senior BJP leader) Ram Madhav. To do all of this, they tortured me. My lungs gave up, I was detained in the hospital illegally. All of this will be part of the story I am writing, but the truth cannot be hidden. I lived in Gujarat, so they also asked me to take Prime Minister Modi’s name. I did not take anyone’s name because they were attempting to make me lie.”
The other names she claimed she was asked to take include Yogi Adityanath, Mr Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar. “They said ‘take these names and we won’t beat you’,” Ms Thakur alleged.
On September 29, 2008, an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle had exploded near a mosque in Maharashtra’s Malegaon, killing six people and injuring over 100. Acquitting Ms Thakur, Lt Col Purohit and the other five accused, Special Judge AK Lahoti said the prosecution had been unable to prove the allegations in the case and deserved to be given the benefit of doubt.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had claimed that an explosive-laden motorcycle used in the blasts belonged to Thakur, and she was arrested in 2008 but the court it had not been proven that the motorcycle used in the blast belonged to Ms Thakur as the engine number was unclear and the chassis number had been scrubbed off., the court had said.
Despite spending nearly nine years in jail, Thakur maintained that she was falsely implicated, framed by the then Congress-led government, and subjected to custodial torture. Thakur said her acquittal was the victory of “Sanatan Dharma” and Hindutva.
The NIA court had rejected the allegations that were raised again by Mr Mujawar and Ms Pragya Thakur stating that it had not found any substances in the charges citing a statement from ACP Mohan Kulkarni, the then chief investigating officer, who clarified that Mujawar was never instructed to arrest any RSS member.
The families of the victims have said they would approach higher courts, including the Supreme Court if necessary, to get justice. Shahid Nadeem, who is the lawyer for some of the accused, also blamed the NIA for not pursuing perjury action against the witnesses who turned hostile.
