In a landmark verdict 17 years after the deadly Malegaon blast, a special NIA court in Mumbai on Thursday acquitted all seven accused, including BJP leader and former MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, citing lack of conclusive evidence and procedural lapses. The 2008 explosion, which occurred in the communally sensitive town of Malegaon in Maharashtra’s Nashik district, claimed six lives and left over 100 injured.
Delivering the judgment, Special NIA Judge A.K. Lahoti stated that while the prosecution established that a bomb blast occurred — involving explosives allegedly fitted to a motorcycle — it failed to prove the critical detail that the bomb was actually placed on that specific motorcycle. The explosion happened near Bhikku Chowk on the night of September 29, during the holy month of Ramzan, just before Navratri, in a town with a sizeable Muslim population.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which took over the probe, had charged seven individuals: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sameer Kulkarni. The court, however, ruled that the evidence against them was insufficient.
“There is no evidence that explosives were stored or assembled at Lt Col Purohit’s residence,” the judge observed. He also noted that no proper sketch of the scene was drawn during the investigation, no fingerprints or digital data were recovered from the site, and that the motorcycle’s chassis number was unclear, undermining claims of its ownership.
In Sadhvi Pragya’s case, the court said the prosecution failed to establish that the bike was in her possession immediately before the blast. Furthermore, the judge dismissed the application of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the case, declaring both sanction orders as defective and non-compliant with legal procedures.
The accused were charged under various sections of the UAPA and Indian Penal Code, with the trial beginning in 2018 and concluding in April 2025. The verdict brings closure to a prolonged legal saga, highlighting critical shortcomings in investigation and prosecution.
