Another Malegaon accused gets bail

The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Wednesday granted bail to Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case. The court has granted him bail against a personal bond of Rs50,000.

While granting bail to Kulkarni, who was arrested on October 28, 2008, the special court considered the fact that his role was not as big as that attributed to colonel Shrikant Purohit, who was released on bail last month on the orders of the Supreme Court. The special court has granted bail to Kulkarni on the grounds of ‘parity.’

According to the NIA chargesheet, Kulkarni had attended almost all the meetings and especially in the meeting held at Faridabad, he agreed to the proposal of forming a Central Hindu Government (Aryawart) against the Indian government. He had also put forth the idea of forming this government in exile in Israel and Thailand.

The central agency has claimed that it was Kulkarni who had organised the meeting at Bhopal as he was the president of Abhinav Bharat’s Madhya Pradesh unit.

The NIA has relied upon the phone call of Purohit to prove Kulkarni’s ‘complicity’ in the case. The agency has claimed that post Sadhvi’s arrest, Purohit had personally SMSed and also called him instructing to leave Bhopal and also delete his (Purohit’s) number from his (Kulkarni’s) cell phone.

According to special public prosecutor Avinash Rasal, “This is the eight accused who has been granted bail in the case. The only accused who has not moved for bail is Dhavade and he is not likely to apply for bail as he needs time to do research work for his books, which he has been writing in jail.” “Since all the bail pleas are decided, the special judge would now proceed with hearing the discharge pleas of accused Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and also of Col. Purohit. It is only after deciding the discharge pleas, the court would take up the framing of charges part,” Rasal added.

Till now Sadhvi Pragya, Col. Purohit, Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi, Ajay Rahirkar and Chintaman Mhatre have got bail in the case.