Sadhvi Pragya may walk out of jail soon

NEW DELHI: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s bail application is likely to come up Wednesday for hearing before the Bombay High Court, which is considering the plea for the first time after she was given a clean chit by the National Investigation Agency in the 2008 Malegaon blasts.

With NIA is unlikely to oppose her bail on “health grounds”, she may finally walk out of the jail, sources at the terror probe agency told ET. She has been behind bars for the past eight years.

In its filing in May, the NIA had said there was no case made out against Thakur. But her bail plea was rejected by a special NIA court in June saying that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the charges against her were prima facie true.

Top NIA sources confirmed to ET that the agency will not change the stand before the high court. Seven people were killed and nearly 80 injured in the Malegaon blast on September 29, 2008.

In 2009, Thakur along with 13 others was charged by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad which said it was her motorcycle that was used to plant the bombs. The NIA, however, in its charge-sheet filed in May this year junked the ATS findings and dropped provisions under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against her.

The agency did not rely on the previous statements of two key witnesses, RP Singh and Yashpal Bhadana who turned hostile. In their fresh statement before a magistrate, the two said they were coerced to give the earlier statement by the ATS.

The two claimed before the magistrate that they, during a meeting in Bhopal and another at Faridabad, did not hear about any planning of bomb blast at Malegaon or on causing communal tensions. In its investigations, the ATS had claimed that it was during the Bhopal meeting that the conspiracy to carry out the blasts at Malegaon was planned.