Days after the alleged confession of Swami Aseemanand that Hindu extremists may be responsible for the Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006,a Special MCOCA court today allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to reinvestigate the case which had first been probed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad. In his statement,Aseemanand,arrested for his alleged role in the Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts of 2007,said that RSS activist Sunil Joshi had told him in 2006 that the Malegaon blasts that year had been carried out by our men. Joshi,who is also linked to the Mecca Masjid,Ajmer and the 2008 Malegaon blasts,was murdered in December 2007. The court order came after CBI counsel Ejaz Khan said that the agency wanted to investigate the blasts afresh in light of Aseemanands reported confession. The CBI also told the court that it would ask for Aseemanands custody to question him along with Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur,Dayanand Pandey and Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit,arrested for the Malegaon 2008 blast. The Maharashtra ATS had arrested nine Muslim men in connection with the September 8,2006 Malegaon blasts in which four bombs killed 37 people and injured hundreds of worshippers on Shab-e-Baraat. The ATS filed a 2,200- page chargesheet in December 2006 against eight of the nine and said they were all members of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The ninth turned an approver. The chargesheet claimed that the nine had hatched and executed the conspiracy with the help of two Pakistanis to trigger communal riots. However,the state government handed over the case to CBI the day the chargesheet was filed saying there was pressure from Muslim groups and political parties. Although the CBI had accepted the case,it had not questioned the ATS investigation. In fact,the CBI had filed a supplementary chargesheet in the case in February last year and submitted voice recordings of approver Abrar Ahmed,who later retracted his statement. In the recordings,Ahmed was allegedly heard discussing the conspiracy of the blast with the co-accused minutes before the explosions. In the additional evidence it produced,the CBI said that all the men arrested by the Maharastra ATS were involved in the terror attack since Ahmed retracted his statement alleging that he had been forced to make it. The 20-page chargesheet also had details of a telephone conversation between Abrar Ahmed and Mohammed Zahid around the time of the blasts. The trial in the case was stayed by the Supreme Court in February 2008 when the defence challenged some provisions in MCOCA which had been applied to the case as well as the 7/11 attack. In April last year,the SC vacated the stay but the trial is yet to resume due to a backlog of cases in the MCOCA court. Over the last week,relatives of the arrested Muslim men have appealed for their release saying they always believed they were innocent. (With inputs from ENS,Delhi)
