2006 Malegaon blasts: Accused wants court to summon CBI, ATS

Mumbai: An accused in the 2006 Malegoan blast case has filed an application, requesting the court to summon and hear the officers of Anti Terrorism Squad and CBI, who had named members of the banned organisation SIMI as the culprits. Manohar Singh, one of those arrested in the case, today filed the application in the special court here, objecting to the discharge pleas of the alleged SIMI operatives, arrested earlier in the case by Maharashtra ATS. [caption id=“attachment_1136129” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A file photo of the Malegaion blasts. Reuters[/caption] The ATS and the CBI must be heard before the court decides on the discharge pleas, the application says. The court will hear the application next month. The NIA last month did not object to the discharge applications filed by nine Muslims who had been arrested earlier. “Evidence collected by NIA in further investigation is not in consonance with evidence collected by ATS and CBI,” the NIA had said. The ATS had arrested Noorul Huda Samsudoha (28), Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah (41), Raees Ahmed Rajab Ali Mansuri (35), Dr Salman Farsi Abdul Latif Aimi (40), Dr Farogh Iqbal Ahmed Magdumi (38), Mohammad Ali Alam Sheikh (42), Asif Khan Bashir Khan alias Junaid (35), Mohammad Zahid Abdul Majid Ansari (31) and Abrar Ahmed Gulam Ahmed (38). But NIA, which took over the case later, found that the blast was in fact the handiwork of a right-wing group, and arrested Lokesh Sharma, Dhan Singh, Manohar Singh and Rajendra Choudhary. The blasts at Malegaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra on September 8, 2006 had claimed 37 lives. Most of the victims were Muslim pilgrims. The town witnessed another blast in 2008, for which Sadhvi Pragya Singh, former army officer Srikant Purohit and others were arrested. PTI