A special court on Thursday granted permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation to reinvestigate the 2006 Malegaon blasts which killed 37 persons.
The CBI had filed an application seeking permission for the same after Swami Aseemanand, arrested in Haryana, had “confessed” that Hindu radicals were behind the blast in which the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad had filed a chargesheet against nine Muslims.
A special investigation team will be formed by the Mumbai unit of the CBI to probe the matter all over again from the beginning.
The minorities commission had taken Swami Aseemanand’s confession to state home minister R.R. Patil, who had assured them that he would ask the CBI to look into the matter. The move comes in the wake of heavy political pressure, sources said.
Swami Aseemanand had, under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, made a confessional statement before a magistrate on December 18 in Delhi. Accepting the CBI’s arguments, special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act judge Yatin D. Shinde on Thursday granted the agency permission under Section 173 (8) of the Criminal Procedure Code to reinvestigate the case. “We need to conduct further investigations into the blast following fresh disclosures made by Aseemanand in his confession,” CBI counsel Ejaz Khan argued before the court.
The move comes as a blow to the state anti-terrorism squad which had already filed a 2,220-page chargesheet in the case. The ATS had claimed that the bombs were assembled by two Pakistanis who stayed in Mumbai and Malegaon for over one-and-a-half months. One of them had been identified as Muzammil.
However, Swami Aseemanand had told his interrogators that it was Rashtriya Swayamseval Sangh worker Sunil Joshi (murdered later, in 2008) and others who were responsible for the blasts. The probe was conducted by Mr Subodh Kumar Jaiswal, the then additional commissioner of police, ATS. He was later shifted to the Research and Analysis Wing.
Four bombs planted in Malegaon, a communally-sensitive powerloom township in Maharashtra, had exploded on September 8. The day happened to be Shab-e-Baraat, considered auspicious among Muslims.
The police claimed 20 kg of RDX was smuggled to Malegaon and around five kg of the explosive material was used to make six bombs.
The chargesheet has been filed against Mohammed Zahid Majid, Salman Faisa Abdul Latif Aimi, Faruq Iqbal Ahmed Majdumi, Sheikh Mohammed Alim Alam Shaikh, Asif Khan Basir Khan, Noorul Huda Samshudoha, Shabir Ahmed Masiullah and Rais Ahmed Razaq Mansuri.