Court, EC urged to bar Sadhvi from elections

Mumbai/New Delhi, April 18

A Malegaon blast victim’s father and a political activist today moved the special NIA court and the Election Commission, respectively, seeking barring of prime accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur from contesting the Lok Sabha polls, a day after the BJP fielded her from Bhopal.

The BJP, meanwhile, said it will contest the polls in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh as a fight against the alleged “conspiracy” by the Congress to defame Hindu religion by linking it to terrorism.

The application before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai was filed by Nisar Sayeed, who lost his son in the blast in 2008.

Special judge VS Padalkar sought replies from both the NIA and Thakur and posted the matter for Monday.

The applicant pleaded that Thakur, who is out on bail, be asked to attend court proceedings in Mumbai and be barred from contesting the election as the trial is in progress.

Thakur has spent nine years in jail and is out on bail since 2017 on health grounds. If Thakur was “healthy enough to fight elections in the crippling summer heat”, then she has misled the court, Sayeed alleged.

A petition seeking cancellation of her bail is pending before the Supreme Court, the applicant said.

Six persons were killed and 100 injured in a bomb blast at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.

The Maharashtra ATS arrested Thakur and others in the case, alleging they were part of a Hindu extremist group which carried out the blast. The NIA later gave Thakur a clean chit, but the court did not discharge her.

It dropped charges against her under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, but she is still facing trial under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Indian Penal Code sections. — PTI