All prosecution witnesses examined, now court to record statement of accused

The recording of evidence was completed before a special NIA court here on Thursday in the 2008 Malegaon blast case in which seven accused including BJP MP Pragya Thakur are facing trial under antiterror law UAPA and the Indian Penal CodeThe National Investigation Agency NIA represented by special public prosecutors Avinash Rasal and Anushree Rasal filed a pursis a written document before Special Judge AK Lahoti saying it has completed the recording of evidence and no more prosecution witnesses are needed to be examinedA total of 323 prosecution witnesses were examined over the past five years of which 34 turned hostileThe court will now hear the statements of the accused under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure CrPC which will be followed by recording the statements of defence witnesses and final arguments The accused have been directed to be present in the court on September 25 for their 313 CrPC statementsMeanwhile the court has rejected accused Lt Col Prasad Purohits plea seeking to recall a witness saying it wont be proper to do so on the basis of unseen uncertain and unproduced documentsSix 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 2008The case was initially probed by the Maharashtra Anti Terror Squad ATS before being transferred to NIA 2011After taking over the case the NIA filed a chargesheet in 2016 giving a clean chit to Pragya Thakur and three other accused Shyam Sahu Praveen Takalki andShivnarayan Kalsangra saying it found no evidence against them and they should be discharged from the caseIn 2017 the NIA court however absolved only Sahu Kalsangra and Takalki and ruled that Pragya Thakur would have to face the charges It had also discharged Rakesh Dhawde and Jagdish Mhatre from the caseAt that time the special court had dropped stringent charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act MCOCA against the accusedThe special court had on October 30 2018 framed charges in the case against seven accused under the stringent sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA and the Indian Penal Code IPCThey were facing trial under sections 16 committing terrorist act and 18 conspiring to commit terrorist act of the UAPA and under IPC sections 120 b criminal conspiracy 302 murder 307 attempt to murder 324 voluntarily causing hurt and 153 a promoting enmity between two religious groupsApart from Purohit and Pragya Thakur the other accused are Major Ramesh Upadhyay retired Ajay Rahirkar Sudhakar Dwivedi Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer KulkarniFollowing the framing of charges the trial in the case began in 2018 with the examination of the first witness in the caseDuring the course of five years 323 prosecution witnesses were examined of which 34 had turned hostileWe have adduced maximum evidence collected by the investigating agency Now the material will be seen at the time of final arguments SPP Avinash Rasal said on the closing of evidence in the caseThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever