Six accused in Margao blast to move court seeking speedy trial

Panaji: Six accused in the 2009 Margao blasts will soon move an application in a special court here, seeking a speedy trial in the case. “When the case would come for hearing before the court on 19 September, we will move an application to fast track the hearing,” Sanjiv Punalkar, lawyer for the accused, said. [caption id=“attachment_78862” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Eight persons were booked for the bomb blast that ripped through Margao town on 16 November 2009. Punit Paranjpe/Reuters”]  [/caption] The case is now being heard by a special court designated under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act in Panaji. Punalkar alleged that NIA has been examining one witness at a time which is consuming time. “Till date, 23 witnesses have been examined in the case and there are 150 witnesses of which atleast 70 would be examined during the trial,” he said. Eight persons were booked for the bomb blast that ripped through Margao town on 16 November 2009. After initial investigations by Goa Police, NIA had taken over the probe. The chargesheet was filed on 18 May 2010 against six accused. Two accused — Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik — who were allegedly ferrying explosives had died when it went off accidentally before it was being planted at stipulated spot. Punalkar said the NIA has been dragging its feet during the prosecution and wants the accused to languish in the jail for a long period. He said that Bombay High Court had given conditional permission to one of the accused, Dhananjay Ashtekar to appear for the engineering exam at Kolhapur. “But NIA submitted before the Goa court that allowing him for the exam would amount to security threat. We had even agreed that 22-year-old Dhananjay could be handcuffed while answering the exam,” the lawyer said. PTI