Malegaon 2008 blast hearing: BJP MP Pragya Thakur breaks down in court

Mumbai, Oct 3 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party MP Pragya Singh Thakur, a prime accused in the Malegaon 2008 bomb blast case, broke down while recording her statement before the Special NIA Court here on Tuesday, according to her lawyers.

Thakur was posed around five dozen questions pertaining to the testimonies of the medicos who had treated the injured and conducted the post-mortems of the dead victims of the blast case, but she replied in the negative to the queries.

Seated in the witness box, at one point, a disturbed Thakur became visibly emotional and the court proceedings were halted for 10 minutes till she regained her composure, informed advocates J.P. Mishra and Prashant Maggu later.

The Special NIA Court Special Judge A.K. Lahoti took up recording the statements under CrPC Section 313, of Thakur and six others who are accused in the case, affording an accused the opportunity to detail the circumstances appearing in the evidence against them.

The other accused in the case, besides Thakur, are -- retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Ajay Rahirkar and Sameer Kulkarni. So far the court recorded the testimonies of 323 witnesses of which 34 turned hostile, since the trial began in December 2018.

As ordered earlier (September 25) by the Special Judge Lahoti all the 7 accused were present in the court and the recording of statements will continue on Wednesday.

The blast on September 29, 2008 killed around 9 persons and injured over 100 when the explosives planted on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in this Muslim-dominated town in Nashik.

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