NIA delaying Malegaon case trial, not us: Pragya Thakur’s lawyer

JP Mishra, lawyer of Pragya Thakur has said that the National Investigation Agency(NIA) is delaying the trial for the 2008 Malegaon blast.

This comes after the NIA Special court had expressed its displeasure over the absence of three of the accused in the hearing, and has directed all of them to appear before the court physically during the next hearing on January 4.

The allegations of delaying the trial were made by Sameer Kulkarni who is also an accused in the case.

Out of the seven accused, four were present in the court with Pragya Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit and Sudhakar Chaturvedi absent from the hearings.

Mishra further added that arrangements were made for Thakur to travel to Mumbai and a government guesthouse was also booked for her.

However, due to health complications, she was admitted to AIIMS on the advice of her doctors and was not able to travel to Mumbai.

“It is the NIA, which only brings one witness in every hearing, whose statement and cross-questioning gets over in an hour or less than that. Let the NIA bring four to five witnesses a day. Then, we can expect expedited proceedings. Who has stopped NIA from bringing more witnesses so that the court can function for longer?” Mishra told ANI.

The case is related to the bomb blast outside a mosque in Malegaon, Maharashtra in 2008 in which 6 people were killed and more than 100 people were injured.