Mumbai: Nowadays its like pro-hindutva activists are making hay while the sun is shining as after Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prashant Shrikant Purohit another accuse of the in the 2008 Malegaon blast case retired armyman and member of pro-hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat Major Ramesh Upadhyay, has here today got bail from Bombay High Court (BHC).
Ex-armyman Ramesh Upadhyay. (Photo by PTI)
Accepting his plea on the ground of parity – since the other prime accused in the case have been granted bail by the high court and the SCI — a bench of Justices Ranjit More and Sadhna Jadhav reportedly granted him bail against a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh.
Whilst the National Investigating Agency (NIA) through its counsel Sandesh Patil gave an impression of opposing the bail plea of Ramesh Upadhya the BHC maintained that its hands were tied in view of the apex court’s directions on parity. The court also asked if Upadhyay’s role in the blasts was larger than that of prime accused Shrikant Purohit, media reports said.
Apparently, Ramesh Upadhyay’s counsel while denying the BHC’s excuse of granting bail reportedly said that “The apex court had recently granted bail to Purohit and that the trial court in Mumbai had also let out two other accused persons in the case, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi. Thus, Upadhyay too must be granted bail.”
The NIA, in its chargesheet, had cited transcripts of phone conversations between Upadhyay and Purohit as prime evidence against the former. The Supreme Court had last month granted bail to Purohit in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, reads a quote from report published in an English vernacular.
Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008 at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in Nashik district of north Maharashtra, reports Indian Express (IE).