’08 Malegaon case: Warrant against 2 state ATS officers

INDORE: An Indore court has issued an arrest warrant against two officers of the Maharashtra ATS in connection with the disappearance of a witness in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
Special CBI magistrate Raghvendra Singh Chouhan, in his order on Friday, also dismissed the CBI’s application to close the case. The CBI had said in its report that it had found evidence against the then inspector Rajendra Ghule and sub-inspector Ramesh More of the Mumbai ATS in connection with the disappearance of witness Dilip Patidar.The agency sought closure of the case, citing absence of requisite sanction from competent authority to prosecute the duo.
However, the magistrate said the alleged act was not a part of their duty as public servant and therefore no sanction is required. The court also said that prima facie there is evidence against Ghule and More for prosecution for criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, fabrication of evidence and other offences under the IPC.
The Madhya Pradesh high court had transferred the case to the CBI on a petition filed by Patidar's brother Ramswaroop.
According to Ramswaroop, ATS officials took Patidar with them from Indore for questioning on the intervening night of November 10 and 11, 2008, and after that he went missing.
Ramswaroop’s lawyer J P Sharma said that Patidar’s family doesn’t know whether he is alive or dead and for the last eight years, they have been undergoing tremendous anguish.
The ATS has claimed that it released Patidar on November 18, 2008, and was asked to come back with certain documents, but he never returned. At one point of time, he had been a tenant of the absconding accused in the case, Ramchandra Kalsangra.
Earlier this month, the National Investigation Agency, probing the blast case, dropped the names of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five others as accused in its chargesheet filed before a Mumbai special court.
Seven people were killed in twin blasts during Ramzan on September 29, 2008. agencies