HC grants bail to another accused,but no luck for Lt Col Purohit

Twelve people were arrested and booked under the MCOCA for their involvement in the terror attack that killed six and injured nearly 100 people in the communally sensitive town in September 2008. Two accused,Shivnarayan Kalsangra and Shyam Sahu,were granted bail by the HC on August 3,observing they had no active role to play in the conspiracy.

Refusing to grant bail to Purohit,Justice Chavan observed,“Lt Col Purohit,a serving Army officer,was not just involved in talking about Hindu rashtra,but is alleged to have been instrumental in making RDX available.” The court said the prosecution’s evidence of Purohit bragging about possessing RDX to a witness and the RDX found on a cotton swab from the house of Sudhakar Chaturvedi in Deolali will have to be tested during trial.

However,allowing Rahirkar’s bail plea,the court said in its 85-page order that there is nothing in the conversation transcripts produced by the investigating agencies that show his involvement. “All that he could be said to have done is finance purchase of some arms and not any material used in the blasts at the instance of Purohit from the funds of the (Abhinav Bharat) trust.”

Purohit’s lawyer Shrikant Shivde argued that the prosecution’s evidence mainly hinged on the transcripts of conversations at meetings of the alleged members of the Abhinav Bharat Trust,who were seeking to form an independent Hindu nation,that were recorded by another accused Sudhakar Dwivedi.

Special public prosecutor Rohini Salian told the court that the conversations were recorded “to be shown to some entity outside India…”,which would aid them in forming the independent nation. Shivde,however,contended that those who made speeches much more fiery than those of Purohit were made witnesses in the case while he was languishing in jail for the past three years as an accused.

The court,however,observed,“While nothing objectionable can be attributed to Ajay Rahirkar,Lt Col Purohit’s utterances are in lower pitch than of those who have been made witnesses. Yet,as submitted by the learned special public prosecutor,Lt Col Purohit’s presence and participation appears all pervasive. There are also intercepts of a telephonic conversation between Lt Col Purohit and others after the blast which may not be so innocuous. However,Ajay Rahirkar’s conversations are pretty mundane.”

Snubbing the argument that Purohit was in fact an Army officer on anti-terror operations and was gathering military intelligence,the court observed,“Malegaon blast surely cannot be imagined to be a part of any such operation which misfired. It would be difficult to say at this stage whether in his overzealous endeavour to gather intelligence from fundamentalists,Lt Col Purohit slipped up and came to be associated with wrong elements. Because ordinarily in such a case his military bosses would have not disowned him and would have claimed the right to try him themselves.”