Another witness was declared hostile on Wednesday in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, taking the total number of witnesses to be hostile to 13. In the blast that had taken place near a mosque in Malegaon in Nashik district on September 29, 2008, six persons had been killed and over 100 injured.
BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit are among the accused in the case.
As per the statement of the latest witness, recorded by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in 2009, he had gone for a ‘darshan’ of Swamy Shankaracharya (Sudhakar Dwivedi, now an accused in the case) for which Purohit, with whom he was acquainted, had called him.
During the darshan, Shankaracharya had shown instigating content, he told the police, adding Purohit too had given lecture on Hindutvavaad. On Wednesday, he denied having gone to Nashik for the purpose and identified Purohit only as an acquaintance.
The previous statement said, he was involved in marketing Ayurvedic products and had got acquainted with Prasad Purohit, when he had put up his stall at an exhibition centre and Purohit had visited it and introduced himself as an army officer. The witness had then delivered medicines a few times to Purohit. The statement said that in 2007, Purohit had called him and asked him to come to Nashik to take darshan of Swamy Shankaracharya.
The witness had gone with his friend. The statement further said, 80 to 90 persons had assembled for Swamy’s darshan and Purohit had introduced Swamy Shankaracharya to those assembled in the room. The Swamy had spoken about Hindutvavaad, the statement said. During the darshan, Shankaracharya had shown instigating content, he is said to have told the police, adding Purohittoo had given a lecture on Hindutvavaad, the statement said.
During the darshan, Shankaracharya had shown instigating content, he is said to have told the police, adding Purohit too had given a lecture on Hindutvavaad. After the video, both Shankaracharya and Purohit had lamented that injustice was being done on Hindus and nothing was done about it.
The witness had said that he had not expressed anything at the time, the statement said. It stated that during the discussions, one person had spoken about Mohammad Ghazni’s loot in India, and the government was appeasing Muslims for which awareness had to be created.
Another person, he said, had spoken about his anger towards Muslims and that there should be a blast in a place in India. Purohit and another person, had given a speech on Hindutvavaad, the statement said adding, he did not pay attention as he was not interested. The statement said he never participated in such programs again.
