Malegaon blast case: NIA court rejects plea seeking cancellation of accused's bail

MUMBAI: A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here on Thursday rejected a plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to Sudhakar Dwivedi, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, for allegedly violating the bail conditions.

Dwivedi had secured bail in 2017, and one of the bail conditions was that he cannot leave the country without the court's permission.

Nisar Ahmed Bilal, the father of one of the victims and an intervener in the case, sought cancellation of the bail granted to Dwivedi, claiming that the latter had allegedly violated the bail conditions by travelling to Nepal without taking the court's permission In his plea, filed through advocate Shahid Nadeem, Bilal claimed that when he stumbled upon information about Dwivedi's visit to Nepal, he did his own research and found evidence for the same.

“Photographs of the said event (Nepal visit) were submitted with a request to the special public prosecutor that the NIA file an application for cancellation of bail.

However, no such action has been taken till today,” said the plea, which was filed in October last year.

Special judge A K Lahoti rejected the plea, but directed the accused not to breach the bail condition henceforth.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured on September 29, 2008, after an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque at Malegaon town in Nashik district, located about 200 kilometres from Mumbai.

Besides Dwivedi, other accused in the case include Lt Col Prasad Purohit, BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, Shudakar Diwedi, Major Ramesh Upadhyay (retired), Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni, all of whom are out on bail.