Mumbai:
BJP MP Pragya Thakur, one of the main accused in the 2008 Malegaon case, turned emotional on Tuesday while answering questions as her statement was recorded by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court.
The court on Tuesday started recording the statements of Ms Thakur and six other accused in the case under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code, under which an accused is given an opportunity to explain circumstances appearing in the evidence against him or her.
The suspect was asked about 60 questions about the testimonies of the doctors who had treated the injured and conducted autopsies after the Malegaon blast.
Ms Thakur, who was in the witness box, became visibly emotional at one point and the proceedings were halted for ten minutes.
Her answer to all questions was: “I don’t know”.
Ms Thakur, the Lok Sabha member from Bhopal, felt uncomfortable when she was asked questions about the injuries of the blast victims, her lawyers JP Mishra and Prashant Maggu later told reporters.
The recording of the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses in the case is over. Since the trial began in December 2018, as many as 323 prosecution witnesses have been interviewed, 34 of whom turned hostile or did not support the prosecution’s case.
Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sameer Kulkarni are being tried under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
All seven suspects were present before Special NIA Trial Judge AK Lahoti for recording of statements under Section 313, which will continue on Wednesday.
Six people were killed and more than a hundred injured when an explosive attached to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon in northern Maharashtra, about 200 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.
The case was initially investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before it was transferred to the NIA in 2011.
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