Sadhvi files discharge petition before NIA court

Mumbai: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur (44), an accused in the September 2008 Malegaon blast case, filed a discharge application before the special NIA court on Wednesday. Thakur’s application came up a week after the Bombay high court granted her bail on grounds of lack of evidence against her in the case. The special court on Wednesday asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which took over the case’s probe from the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in 2011, to file its reply in response to Thakur’s discharge application.

The court is likely to hear her application today. Thakur was chargesheeted in the case by the ATS in 2009. The NIA, which took over the case from the ATS subsequently, gave her a clean chit in 2016. While speaking to The Asian Age, the sadhvi’s lawyer Prashant Maggu said, “We stated in the discharge application that earlier government had fabricated the case against her.” He also said that while granting bail to her the court had observed that there was no prima facie case made out against her and therefore she should be discharged from the case.”

While granting the bail to Thakur on April 25, the high court had said, “It cannot be said that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations made against her are prima facie true. Once it is held so, the benefit of bail cannot be withheld to the appellant, even if the offences alleged against her by ATS are grave and serious.”

The court while giving bail to Thakur also considered that she is a woman who has been suffering from breast cancer. The court also noted that she had been in custody for the last eight years and now she could not even walk without the supports of others.