A special court Tuesday framed terror charges against Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five other accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, setting the stage for their trial that will commence on Friday.
Observing that the organisation named Abhinav Bharat was formed by the accused with the common object to "spread terrorism", the court here also framed charges of criminal conspiracy and murder, among other offences.
Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
Judge Vinod Padalkar, presiding over the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court, framed charges against all the seven accused under relevant sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
After framing of the charges, the court posted the case on November 2 for the trial to commence. Framing of charges is a process after which the trial in a criminal case starts.
Apart from Purohit and Sadhvi, the other accused are - Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.
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All the accused were present in the court when the judge read out the charges against them. They pleaded not guilty in the case.
The accused were charged under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA.
Under the IPC, they were charged under sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).
If convicted under these sections, the maximum punishment can be life imprisonment or death.
The accused were also charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act.
The judge, while reading out the charges against the accused persons said, "The Abhinav Bharat organisation was formed with the common object to spread terrorism and a bomb with RDX was planted on a motorcycle in Malegaon that killed six persons and injured 101 others."
Purohit told the court he never expected the charges to be framed against him and said, "No one can doubt my honesty, integrity and service record."
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