Lt Colonel Purohit walks out of jail after nine years

MALEGAON BLAST Convoy of army vehicles takes him out of prison to army headquarters after the top court granted him bail on Aug 21

NAVI MUMBAI : After nine years, Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an accused in the Malegaon blasts case, was released on bail from Taloja Central jail in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday.

Purohit is being taken to the Army headquarters at Colaba in Mumbai.

The officer has been accused of providing explosives for the September 29, 2008 attack in Malegaon that killed six people.

While the Bombay high court rejected his bail plea last year, the Supreme Court granted him bail on Monday.

A convoy of army vehicles took him out of the jail. Some of his relatives also accompanied him.

Purohit’s bail, opposed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which is probing the 2008 attack, came months after the acquittal of Swami Aseemanand and six others in the bombing of the Ajmer Sharif mausoleum in Rajasthan a year earlier.

Sadananda Gaikward, SP of Taloja Central jail, said, “We have released Purohit and he won’t have to come back to the jail for clearing any formality. We have no idea where he is being taken.”

While Purohit did not speak to the media at the time leaving the jail, he said the Army had not let him down while being taken to the sessions court on Tuesday.

“The army did not let me down. I have full faith in the army, my colleagues and my regiment,” he said, during his brief interaction with media outside the special National Investigation Agency (NIA court.

“I am very happy and want to return to my two families. One family is my army and my colleagues and second is my family – my mother, wife, sons and two dogs.

I want to wear my uniform, I am wedded to it. I am very happy to get back into the service of the best organisation in the country if not the world, the Indian army,” Purohit said.

Jail sources told Hindustan Times (HT) that Purohit will be later taken to Pune.

He will be taken either to his residence or to his office where he was posted back in 2008.

It is still not certain which unit he will be attached to. How- ever, Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit may be attached to a unit in Mumbai as he has to appear for the Malegaon blast case in a court there. His suspension continues and restrictions on him will be as per the bail conditions.