Malegaon blast: Special court junks former ATS officer's claim of order to arrest Mohan Bhagwat

A special court here in its judgment, acquitting seven persons in the September 2008 Malegaon blast case, rejected the claims made by a former Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) official that he had been ordered to arrest RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in the case.

Special NIA Judge A K Lahoti, in his over 1000-page judgment, said it did not find any force in the contentions raised by the advocate for accused Sudhakar Dwivedi, who had relied on the claims made by Mehboob Mujawar, a former ATS officer.

The observations fell flat on the face of Mujawar, who had reiterated on Thursday that he had been asked to apprehend Bhagwat and the objective behind the same was to establish that there was “saffron terror”.

Mujawar had at the time also claimed that senior ATS officers had ordered him to arrest Bhagwat, but he had refused to obey such illegal orders as he did not find any role of Bhagwat in the alleged offence.

The court, in its order, rejected the defence lawyer's contention based on a statement made by ACP Mohan Kulkarni, the then chief investigating officer, that Mujawar was never asked to arrest any member of RSS and was only sent out to trace the two absconding accused — Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange.