Malegaon case: Was there a 'message from top' to Rohini Salian, asks Congress

New Delhi: Congress on Thursday wondered if there was a message from “the top” to Rohini Salian to go soft in Malegaon case as public prosecutor and alleged that BJP leadership had tried to “bargain” with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “not to pursue cases against Hindu extremists”. [caption id=“attachment_2312810” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Digvijay Singh. Agencies[/caption] Demanding “removal” of Director General of NIA over the episode, the party also sought answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh over remarks of Salian, that she was under pressure from NIA to go soft in the case. Scaling up the attack, Digvijay Singh said on Twitter-

Not unexpected as BJP leadership had tried to bargain with Dr Man Mohan Singh not to pursue cases where Hindu Extremists were accused.

— Digvijaya Singh (@digvijaya_28) June 25, 2015

In another tweet, he recalled, “Rajnath Singh ji had visited Pragya Singh Thakur an accused in terror cases in jail.” Alleging a “message from top” in the episode, Singh tweeted-

Would PM and HM Govt of India please clarify whether NIA Ofiicer acting on his own or under instructions from Home Ministry ?

— Digvijaya Singh (@digvijaya_28) June 25, 2015

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“Rohini Salian Special Public Prosecutor dealing Malegaon 2008 blast case asked by NIA Officer to go slow and soft. Message from top!” he said in another tweet Party spokesperson Shobha Oza said,“This shows a form of undeclared Emergency”. Another party spokesperson Ajay Maken demanded the probe by National Investigation Agency should be monitored by the Supreme Court or High Court henceforth, as Congress has “no faith” in the ongoing investigations by the agency under the Home Ministry. “It is a very serious matter. NIA Director General (Sharad Kumar) should be immediately removed because he is responsible for it. The Supreme Court or the High Court should monitor the NIA investigation directly. “We no longer have faith in the probe in the case being carried by NIA under Government of India or Home Ministry,” Maken said. He also referred to the death of Mumbai cop Hemant Karkare during Mumbai terror strike in 2011, noting that the officer was also probing the Malegaon case. Maken, in a press statement, demanded that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister must answer in public domain their role in “compromising the integrity” of an on-going trial in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. Maken alleged the sequence of events “clearly establish” that NIA wants the terror accused sympathetic to RSS or BJP ideology in Malegaon blast case to be acquitted by ensuring that Special Public Prosecutor goes soft in the case. “These revelations are shocking and establish a conspiracy to help the terror accused that reached at the very top of echelons of power in the country including Director-General of National Investigation Agency (NIA) and PM, Home Minister of the country,” Maken said. He demanded that Salian be immediately restored as a Special Public Prosecutor in the case in order to meet the ends of justice and ensure a fair trial of the “accused having links to BJP/RSS”. Maken also recalled that Karkare’s remarkable investigation had led to arrest of 11 persons including BJP leader, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Amritanand, Dayanand Pandey, Major Ramesh Upadhaya and Sri Kant Purohit. “Most of the accused belonged to a radical group called ‘Abhinav Bharat’ with direct links to ‘Sangh Parivar’. At that time, various leaders from BJP and Shiv Sena had called the officers investigating the case including Shri Hemant Karkare as a traitor to the nation,” Maken said. Stirring a controversy, the Special Public Prosecutor in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case in which some Hindu extremists were accused, today alleged that the NIA had asked her to go “soft” on the accused after the BJP-led Government assumed power a year ago. “An NIA officer called me up and said he wanted to meet me. He then met me some time last year and asked me to go soft on the accused in this case,” Rohini Salian, the SPP in the case, claimed. She said the officer had apparently got “instructions from higher-ups to convey this to her,” Salian told reporters. Salian, however, declined to name the officer who met her. PTI