On 24 April 2017, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Pragya Singh Thakur, a former national executive member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case. On 29 September 2008, two bombs concealed in a motorcycle had exploded in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in Maharashtra. Four persons were killed in the blast and 79 others injured. The investigation into the blasts was initially conducted by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which filed its chargesheet in January 2009. In it, the ATS named 14 persons, including Thakur. She was arrested in October 2008. The ATS alleged that Thakur was one of the masterminds behind the blast. It stated that she owned the bike associated with the blast, and had given it to a co-accused Ramchandra Kalsangra, who planted the bomb and placed it at the blast site. The evidence the ATS presented against Thakur included statements from witnesses and co-accused, which placed her at meetings planning the blasts before its execution.
In April 2011, the home ministry transferred the case to the National Investigation Agency. Five years later, in 2016, the NIA filed a supplementary chargesheet in which it called the ATS investigation “dubious” and dropped Thakur and five others from the list of accused persons, claiming that “sufficient evidence have not been found” against them. The NIA chargesheet stated the ATS had tortured a witness who made a statement indicting Thakur. Another witness, RP Singh, who had earlier told the ATS that he overheard Thakur showing her readiness to provide men to arrange the blast, retracted his statement. On these grounds, and arguing the bike used in the blast was not in her possession, the NIA issued a clean chit to Thakur. One month after the NIA’s supplementary chargesheet was filed, an NIA court rejected a bail application filed by Thakur, in June 2016, stating that prima facie charges were still made out against her. Thakur filed an appeal against the order dismissing bail before the Bombay High Court. While granting her bail, the court said: “It cannot be said that there are reasonable grounds for believing that accusation made against her are prima facie true.”
