Malegaon Blast Case: NIA Court Acquits All Accused

Malegaon Blast Terrorism Has No Religion, Can't Be Punished on Assumptions: Court

In the Malegaon blast case, no evidence was found, and the NIA special court acquitted all seven accused. On July 31, the Mumbai NIA special court acquitted all the accused in the 2008 Maharashtra Malegaon explosions, declaring them innocent. The court said the prosecution had completely failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.

The NIA court also ordered the Maharashtra government to compensate the families of the victims with ₹2 lakh each and the injured with ₹50,000. The accused in this blast case included former MP Sadhvi Pragya, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi (Shankaracharya), and Sameer Kulkarni. The NIA special court stated, "All the bail bonds of the accused are canceled, and the bailers are released."

Before announcing the verdict, the court had questioned 323 witnesses from the prosecution side and 8 witnesses from the defense. All seven accused were acquitted of charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Arms Act, and other charges.