When bombs tore through the crowded lanes of Malegaon in 2008, killing six people and injuring over a hundred, it was assumed to be another in a series of Islamist terror attacks, and some Muslim men were arrested. But what emerged through the investigation shook the conventional narrative, for the first time, individuals linked to different Hindu right-wing groups including religious leaders and an army officer – were arrested for their role in the attack.
This was not an isolated case. The 2007 Samjhauta Express blast that killed 68 people, and the Ajmer Dargah blast that killed 3 and injured 15, also came to be linked to the same Hindutva outfits, Abhinav Bharat and RSS. In 2009, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had filed a detailed chargesheet in the Malegaon blast case, naming Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, and others. The LML Freedom motorcycle used in the blast was registered in Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s name. Intelligence inputs, intercepted phone calls, and witness statements indicated a wider conspiracy involving Abhinav Bharat. After the BJP-led NDA government came to power in 2014, these cases have been effectively dismantled to save the accused. Rohini Salian, the special public prosecutor in the case, publicly stated in 2015 that she was told by NIA officers to ‘go soft’ after the BJP came to power. She was soon removed from the case, and her warnings went unheeded. In May 2016, the NIA filed a supplementary chargesheet, which dropped major charges, including the stringent MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act), making earlier confessions of the accused and statements of witnesses invalid and effectively weakening the case. Engine and chassis numbers were tampered while the motorcycle was in custody. 30 witnesses died (many of these deaths occurred after 2014), Crucial confessions were retracted, and key witnesses began turning hostile in court. Chief of ATS, Hemant Karkare, who led the investigation was killed in the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai. Journalists exposed that the death was suspicious because the bullet found in his body was not from the guns recovered from terrorists, the bulletproof jacket issued to Karkare was substandard, etc.
This year on 31st July, all seven accused were acquitted by the NIA special court, citing lack of evidence, not because the violence did not occur, but because the state no longer wanted to be accountable. It is their duty to ensure punishment, but the people from both the Central and Maharashtra governments are celebrating. While many activists working for people’s rights are in jail for years without any chargesheet or trial (e.g., the Bhima-Koregaon Case), the terrorists are acquitted because NIA is working under pressure from the central government, and RSS-affiliated people are in positions in the NIA.
