The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Tuesday the bail granted by the Supreme Court to Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast, would have no bearing on the ongoing trial at a special NIA court in Mumbai.
An NIA official said the chance of Purohit, a serving Army officer, influencing witnesses was remote.
Intelligence and investigation agencies have conclusive evidence of the role of Abhinav Bharat, a terror group floated by Purohit, and other fringe right-wing extremists, in multiple terror attacks from 2006-08.
Many officials who played significant roles in uncovering Purohit and others of that network are vocal in their criticism of the NIA and the way those terror cases are now unravelling in courts.
Joining the dots
“Starting sometime in 2006, we have had several inputs to show that our investigations were not going in the right direction. But it took much more time, and several blasts, before we could join the dots and solve the mystery,” says a retired senior intelligence officer who was involved in the investigations that unravelled by 2008 the role of Hindutva fanatics in carrying out terrorist attacks.
“After a blast in Jama Masjid in New Delhi, we did pick up suspicious phone calls to Indore, but couldn’t make much way forward with it,” he said, referring to the June 6, 2006 twin blasts in the courtyard of the historic mosque in which 13 people were injured.
When the first blast took place in Malegaon on September 8, 2006, there was a section in the security establishment which kept arguing that small-scale blasts, some of them mysterious, in nearby towns in the run up to the blast should also be analysed in detail. “At least one of those blasts had taken place in the house of an RSS activist,” he pointed out.
It was only in 2008 that the fact that a small group of Hindutva fringe elements were orchestrating terrorist attacks, on targets with majority Muslim presence or symbols of significance to the community, had emerged. “We still haven’t heard the full story,” a former investigator in the case said. He said that it was still not clear if Col. Purohit was acting alone.
A CBI source said when the agency was handling the case there was strong resistance from within. When request was put up for questioning certain key people, it was turned down, he said. “The NIA has only undone the work done over a decade. It is unfortunate,” the former investigator said.