Indian court grants bail to four terror accused
The four are prime suspects in 2006 bombing case, in a Muslim town of Malegaon
NEW DELHI
An Indian court on Friday ordered release of four Hindus, who were prime accused in the 2006 terror bombing case that killed 37 people in a Muslim town of Malegaon, 290 kilometers northeast of country’s commercial capital Mumbai.
The Bombay High Court granted bail to the accused - Dhan Singh, Lokesh Sharma, Manohar Narwaria and Rajendra Chaudhary, who were in prison since 2013.
The two-judge bench directed that the four should furnish Rs 50,000 ($700) bail bond and two sureties of same amount to get the bail. Also, the court ordered the accused to attend trial proceedings in the lower court until exempted.
The serial bomb blasts near a mosque had also injured 100 people. Local police initially arrested nine Muslims, accusing them of engineering blasts. But, when the probe was shifted to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), it concluded that the blasts were carried out by the Hindu extremists.
Malegaon resident Shafique Ahmed who had lost his sons in the incident opposed the bail.
The Muslim town, in the western Indian province of Maharashtra saw another terror attack in 2008, allegedly by right-wing Hindu groups.
Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and former Lt Col Srikanth Purohit were arrested in connection with the incident. Both of them are out on the bail. Thakur recently won parliamentary elections, she contested on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, from central Indian city of Bhopal.
Earlier this year, the activists had questioned Indian government’s commitment to fighting Hindu terror groups, after the acquittal of the four main suspects in the 2007 Samjhauta train blast case that killed over 50 Pakistani citizens on tour to India.
