Mumbai: A special court designated under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act on Wednesday framed terror charges against two accused Pratap Hazra and Rushikesh Devdikar in the 2018 Nalasopara arms haul case, against whom charges remained to be framed.
The charges are framed by a court when it finds sufficient material against a person to make one stand trial. It paves the way for the trial to begin. The accused are alleged to be part of Hindutva organisations such as Sanathan Sanstha, Hindu Janajagruti among others and are said to have planned to target rationalists and writers who spoke against Hindu traditions. The conspiracy had come to light after a raid at the Nalasopara flat of one Vaibhav Raut had revealed a stock of explosives.
Special judge Dinesh E. Kothalikar said in his order on Wednesday that upon perusal of the police papers, the draft charge and hearing the submissions made by both the sides, the court is satisfied that a case is made out for framing charges against the two accused. It then went on to frame charges of IPC section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act dealing with punishment for terrorist act, recruiting a person for a terror act, punishment for conpiracy towards a terror act, being member of a terror gang, among others. The court also framed charges under the Arms Act, Maharashtra Police Act and the Explosive Substances Act and the Explosives Act.
In Sep 2019, the court had already framed charges against the other 12 others in the case - Sharad Kalaskar, Vaibhav Raut, Sudhanwa Gondhalekar, Shrikant Pangakar, Avinash Pawar, Liladhar Lodhi, Vasudeo Suryawanshi, Sujit Rangaswami, Bharat Kurne, Amol Kale, Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin.
