The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court Monday, on the request of the defence lawyers, directed the Nashik superintendent of police to provide security to the defence lawyers in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case who wanted to visit the blast site. (Photo: File)

Mumbai: The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court Monday, on the request of the defence lawyers, directed the Nashik superintendent of police to provide security to the defence lawyers in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case who wanted to visit the blast site.

The defence lawyers made a joint application, seeking the court’s permission to visit the crime scene.

The applicants also sought the court’s direction to the NIA to provide these lawyers protection when they visited the spot because they feared for their safety, as there was outrage in the public about the incident.

However, the NIA informed the court that it did not have the manpower to provide protection to the lawyers.

Following this, special NIA Judge Vinod Padalkar directed the Nashik superintendent of police to provide 15 policemen for the protection of the lawyers visiting the spot.

The Judge also clarified that the defence would have to bear the cost of protection provided to them.

The court had asked the lawyers to visit the site before June 2.

It may be recalled that currently, the prosecution is examining those as witnesses who were injured in the blast and panch witnesses are also being examined before whom some material has been seized or collected.

However, when the material witnesses, like the complainant etc., step into the witness box, the visit to the crime scene will help the defence lawyers cross-examine such witnesses.

Such visits help lawyers and sometimes even judges to understand the spot and the claims made by the probe agency.

Six people were killed and over hundred were injured in a bomb blast at Malegaon, a communally sensitive textile town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.