In the previous post, we traced the concoction of the Saffron Terror as one of the bigger political conspiracy hatched by UPA Government and its senior ministers against the RSS and its top leaders.

Despite being a politically sensitive matter, these saffron terror cases are fit for a case study on the total miscarriage of justice both ways - not only by torturing the innocent but also by letting free the real offenders.

In a stunning turnaround in the politically sensitive 2008 Malegaon Blasts Case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday (13.05.2016) accused the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the dubious investigation, dropping MCOCA from all accused including Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit and giving almost a clean chit to the prominent accused, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and five others saying evidence against them was not sufficient to justify prosecution.

This ‘charge-sheet' is scathing. Before going further, it has to be realized, that in this particular instance of admission- that people have been wrongfully held, has an enormous political impact. General Secretary of the Congress Digvijay Singh was the first person to go on TV saying that it was all politics claiming "whether a free and fair probe can be expected in all the Hindutva terror cases being investigated by the NIA under the BJP rule." More will flow as the case moves, probably overflow as well.

Let us re-track this case chronologically:

The blasts took place on 29 September 2008 near Bhikku Chowk in Malegaon, Maharashtra. Almost simultaneously, another explosion occurred in Modasa, Gujarat. The blast took place on the eve of Navaratri.

Seven people were killed in Malegaon, and a 15-year old boy lost his life in Modasa injuring 80 other people. Furthermore, the bombs were purportedly similar to those that exploded in Delhi two days before this attack. Police said that an unsophisticated, crude bombs, identical to those that detonated in Delhi 3 days before, were used.

Two low-intensity bombs were fitted on a motorbike and rigged to explode in Malegaon.

PTI had reported that on 5th October 2008 police had arrested a Muslim man and investigations were under way, with more Muslim extremists’ arrests expected.

Soon the Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) was deployed to help the Malegaon police in the investigation. The ATS team was led by ATS chief Hemant Karkare. That the blast took place in the town which has large Muslim population had meant that Hindus may have been behind it.

Immediately, there was a twist in the investigation and on the basis of the bike being used in the blast, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was arrested along with two others. This particular bike once belonged to Sadhvi Pragya, which she sold in 1997 way before she took to spiritual quest. The Saffron Terror angle was brought in.

On 25 October, two more ex-army personnel were also questioned and in two days the total arrest count mounted to seven when the ATS took in Sameer Kulkarni from Bhopal and Sangram Singh from Indore for questioning. According to the ATS, these arrests brought to light the workings of Hindu terror groups.

The ATS reported that they were part of an alleged "larger conspiracy," without elaborating what the plot, or the basis for it, was. Allegations arose that the Sadhvi Pragya and others were framed for the blast.

Sadhvi Pragya made some shocking charges against the ATS in an affidavit claiming that the investigating team has lost all moral authority, the manner in which unsubstantiated allegations have been made against army personnel and also detailing how she was physically and psychologically tortured and abused in obscene languages by her interrogators.

Top BJP leaders expressed their shock and disbelief and asked for a judicial inquiry. In response to the whole imbroglio, the then Agriculture Minister, and NCP Supremo Sharad Pawar described the BJP as "unpatriotic".

On 4 November, the case heated up with the arrest of serving Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit. The Indian Army took this matter very seriously and ordered a Court of Inquiry.

Col. Purohit's counsel alleged that Purohit, with a distinguished service record in the army, was being victimized for political reasons because of the possession of intelligence data of a sensitive nature about SIMI and ISI operations, which could embarrass some top political quarters.

Let us take a break from the chronology and go back to that period. To the year 2008, when the term 'Hindu-Terror' was first invented by the Congress-NCP alliance.

Soon after the 26/11 attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2008, one of the top leaders of Congress Party, Digvijay Singh was found launching a book called "26/11- RSS Ki Saazish." In fact, there was Muslim disenchantment with the party, and the scam-a-day regime was explained as a ‘sideshow' to divert attention from the Congress's crushing defeat in the Gujarat local elections and near complete rout in Bihar.

"Who Killed Karkare" was another book, aimed at denigrating the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Police, to demoralize them.

Why were the clinching pieces of evidence directing towards Islamist radicals not pursued? How did the blame shift from Islamists to Hindus? Some elements in the Maharashtra police appears to have colluded in linking Malegaon 2008 blast to the Samjhauta blast. When leads were thus pointing to Pakistan and SIMI as partners in Samjhauta blast, in November 2008, as an anti-climax, the Maharashtra ATS shockingly told the Special Court through the public prosecutor, that Col Purohit, allegedly involved in the Malegaon blast in which RDX was used, had supplied RDX for the Samjhauta blast

. Here is that Report.

Shockingly, the then Home Minister P. Chidambaram's understanding convinced the investigators of Samjhauta Blast Case that, the United Nations Security Council and the US Treasury Department were fabricating charges against Qasmani, Dawood, and LeT; Faiza Outallah and Washington Post were telling lies to fix LeT and Pakistan; the SIMI officials' Narco evidence was fabricated, and Rehman Mallik's confession about Pakistani involvement was false. It was how the Samjhauta focus shifted from LeT and SIMI to Purohit and via Purohit on to saffron.

The Maharashtra ATS's attempt to link Malegaon 2008 to Samjhauta, which shifted the focus away from LeT on to Col. Purohit was clearly under political direction.

"RSS and BJP were behind the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Malegaon blasts" declared the then Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on January 20, 2012, adding that the training camps run by the RSS and BJP were promoting ‘Hindu terrorism.' Hafiz Saeed, the leader of LeT, welcomed it and asked for a ban on the RSS. How ridiculous!!

India will forever remain indebted to Tukaram Ombale for catching Ajmal Kassab alive, or, we would not have been able to prove that India was a victim of terror attacks from across the border.

Back to chronology of the case:

The investigation was completed on 20 January 2009, and the first charge-sheet in the matter was filed.

In July 2009, a special court trying the case dropped the MCOCA charges against the accused.

The MCOCA charges restored by the Bombay High Court in 2010 on ATS's insistence.

The ATS filed a supplementary charge-sheet on 21 April 2011.

The investigation was handed over to the NIA in April 2011 on directions of Home Minister P. Chidambaram. To know how he handled NIA during his tenure, I strongly recommend this piece.

On April 16, 2015, Supreme Court ruled that there was no "prima facie" evidence that shows that Sadhvi Pragya Singh and Lt. Col. and others were "criminally liable" under the provisions of MCOCA law.

On 6th My, 2016, the NIA Court had filed a compliance report before the Supreme Court, stating that the trial in this matter has not commenced because a charge-sheet has not yet been filed yet. The Supreme Court directed the NIA to file charge-sheet expeditiously.

On May 14, 2016, the NIA filed a supplementary Charge-sheet.

The scathing details of the supplementary Charge-sheet:

The charge-sheet is a scathing indictment of the methods used by the Karkare-led ATS. NIA mentioned that "There are several inherent legal lacunas and complications in the charge-sheet filed by ATS, and it was not relying on such evidence."

On MCOCA:

"ATS Mumbai invoked MCOCA on the basis of the involvement of accused Rakesh Dhawade in the previous two blast cases i.e. Parbhani and Jalna in which the concerned courts had taken the cognizance. The way and circumstances in which the ATS invoked the provisions of MCOCA in this case becomes questionable", the NIA charge-sheet said.

According to the NIA charge-sheet, a case was registered in November 2003 in Parbhani bomb blasts. The charge-sheet was filed against two accused persons Sanjay Choudhary and Himanshu Panse. While in September 2006 first supplementary charge-sheet was filed against accused Maruthi Keshav Wagh and Yogesh Deshpande.

"The second supplementary charge-sheet was filed against accused Rakesh Dhawade on November 13, 2008, immediately after his arrest on November 11, 2008, i.e., within two days of his arrest (in Parbhani case)," the NIA said. "This raises considerable doubt on the integrity of invoking of MCOCA by ATS," the charge-sheet said.

The NIA also mentioned that Col. Purohit and eight others should be tried under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) as accused in the Malegaon blasts case, but recommended that the charges under Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) be dropped. The switch of Acts means the alleged confessional statements of the accused and testimonies of witnesses before police officers will not be treated as evidence anymore.

On Karkare led ATS's Dubious Method:

The NIA also targeted the ATS of using torture to extract the confessional statement from the accused and the invoking of MCOCA provisions against them. The NIA further targets ATS claiming in its charge sheet that witnesses were "threatened, tortured or coerced" to give statements and also threatened witnesses to implicate them falsely in the case. "The dubious method adopted during the investigation by ATS becomes crystal clear from the disappearance of one of the main witnesses," the NIA said.

NIA DG Sharad Kumar also said that an important ‘case diary,' was missing from the ATS's records. "We have mentioned in the charge sheet how the statements of the then accused, Praveen Takkalki, were twisted, and the word ‘bomb' was deliberately inserted. Report.

With no intention to incriminate an officer who was assassinated during 26/11 terror attack, but I must share here a tweet of Madhu Kishwar, who is known for her detailed counter examination of all the Hindu-Terror related cases.

The NIA is also likely to mention before the UAPA court that evidence against the key accused, Colonel Prasad Purohit, was fabricated, and the probe led by former Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare was flawed, and statements of witnesses were taken under duress.

The NIA director also said that it was for the courts to decide on what action should be taken against police officers who planted "false evidence" in the case.

On Col. Purohit:

Those who tracked the UPA's Saffron-Terror ploy, would be surprised reading the NIA's sensational charge that the ATS under Hemant Karkare (who was killed during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks), planted evidence to frame Col. Purohit, a military intelligence officer who was tasked with tracking terrorists. The central agency alleged that an ATS sub-inspector Shekhar Bagde, left traces of RDX in the house of another accused, retired Army personnel Sudhakar Chaturvedi, in Deolali.

The NIA has contended that after it had taken over the case, it found several key Army officials had not been examined. It, therefore, recorded the statement of eight "fresh witnesses" who contributed to the investigations, these were senior officers, including a Colonel and Major.

The NIA in its charge sheet cited the testimony of an Army major and a Subedar to claim that Bagde broke into Chaturvedi's house to allegedly deposit traces of RDX. They also told a Court of Inquiry (the Court of Inquiry conducted by the Armed Forces gave Col. Purohit a clean chit.) hearing Col. Puroit's appeal that Bagde pleaded with them not to report him. Two days later, however, an ATS team raided the house and picked up the RDX traces similar to the one used in Malegaon blasts by using the cotton swab. "This recovery itself becomes suspicious," the NIA told the court. However, the NIA clarified that the shortcomings in the ATS probe were "no reflection on the competence and sacrifices of Hemant Karkare."

The NIA also dismissed the charge against Col. Purohit that he kept part of a haul of RDX he had recovered as a military intelligence officer in J&K, claiming that their inquiries with the Army established that all 70kg of the explosive confiscated during Purohit's time was accounted for.

On Sadhvi Pragya:

Justifying its decision to drop charges against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, the NIA charge-sheet said, "The evidence on record against her is not sufficient to prosecute her as all the witnesses have retracted their statements. Thus, no case is made out against her." ATS's case against the Sadhvi rested on the fact that she owned the LML Freedom motorcycle which was rigged with explosives to carry out the blasts. However, NIA claimed that after reassessing evidence, it had come to the conclusion that she had handed over the motorcycle to another fugitive accused Ramchandra Kalsangra long back before the blasts.

The charge that she attended a meeting in Bhopal to plot the Malegaon blasts could not be proved because two witnesses, Yashpal Bhadana, and R P Singh, retracted their statements about her presence at the meet. "The Maharashtra ATS said that Lokesh Sharma, an accused, was also part of the Abhinav Bharat meeting where it was decided to target Malegaon, but our investigations show that he was in prison at the time of the blast," said Mr. Kumar. Similarly, NIA said no case was made out against the five other accused — Shivnarayan Kalsangra, Shyam Sahu, Praveen Takkalki, Lokesh Sharma and Dhan Singh.

The special public prosecutor, Rohini Salian's claimed that NIA had been asking her to go soft on them. However, her accusation was not only denied but rubbished by the NIA. While dealing with such an important case, the ATS could not have been so careless as not to have recorded the ‘confessions' before a magistrate. The ATS was working on the case during a Congress-NCP regime.

There are now two charge-sheets before the special court — one filed by ATS and the other filed by NIA. The court has taken cognizance of both the charge-sheets. It is now up to the court to decide on framing the charges and determining which of the charge sheet is to be pursued.

There are many ways to look at the clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya and others. They have been in detention for the last one decade on grounds that their detention was required for the investigation. The dropping of Pragya Thakur's name from the charge-sheet had exposed the heinous political game started by Congress when it was in power. Congress invented saffron terror and tried to portray Hindus as terrorists for their crooked vote bank politics. However, This is just the beginning of even more shocking exposes.

However, despite keeping these people in custody for decades, the Congress government failed to prove the charges. The Indian State and all of us should hang our heads in shame. This woman has her life, her sanity, her health, her dignity, everything destroyed. What's the restitution for being put in jail for no reason, or for the mere ineptitude of the investigating agencies, starting with the local police, the ATS, and later, the NIA?

The Bigger Question:

It appears that even in serious cases involving national security, ‘not enough evidence' after nearly a decade of investigation raises serious doubts about the professionalism of the investigators. It also questions the lack of the forensic ability of the investigating agencies.

Secondly, the culpability of the state in keeping people in the slammer, under indefinite detention, and describing them as ‘accused' should mean someone should pay a price. The Congress party and its culpable ministers in your opinion?

If the ‘main accused', are now left out of the charge-sheet, then who carried out the blasts in Malegaon? If the real culprits are not in the net, where are they and what are they up to? And more importantly, have they been involved in other terror activities? If the NIA is correct, it will have to find those who carried out the blasts, and prove its case professionally.

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