Malegaon 2008 blasts case: On bike trail, NIA relied on parts, rejected parts of statements to ATS

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Additionally, while missing witness Dilip Patidar was the sole eyewitness to have seen Pragya with bomb planters Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange according to the ATS chargesheet, the NIA has dismissed his statement and alluded to his disappearance as evidence of the ATS’s “dubious methods”. However, the NIA has retained one sentence from Patidar’s statement — that while the bike belonged to Pragya, it was in Kalsranga’s possession.

Identifying the bike

The mangled golden motorcycle, an LML Freedom, in fact kept ATS field officers knocking at Nashik doors in search for its owners. Meanwhile, a separate team of scientists was busy scratching its engine in a state laboratory. Freedom bikes, in production since 2002, were no longer being manufactured following a March 2005 lockout in the company’s Kanpur factory. But the company provided dealer-wise distribution lists for every Freedom manufactured and sold between 2002 and 2005.

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On October 7, 2008, the ATS finally had an owner’s name after the company confirmed their Kanpur manufacturing unit had found a 2003 model with engine number E 55 OK 261886 sold to Siddi Agencies in Surat. The final buyer was registered as Pragya Singh Chandrapalsingh Thakur from Varachha, Surat. A call to the Surat Road Transport Office confirmed that the bike was still registered with the same name.

Read | 2008 Malegaon blast: NIA says evidence fixed, ATS points to 17-day gap

The same day, Pragya received a telephone call after her father shared her number with an ATS team that had reached her Surat home. According to the ATS chargesheet, Pragya immediately called Kalsangra, told him she had been called to Surat, and would meet him in Ujjain the next day.

On October 11, Kalsangra went underground, and remains wanted. On May 13 this year, when the NIA filed its supplementary chargesheet, it told the court that the ATS’s investigation regarding the owner was accurate but added, “It is also evident on record that the said motorcycle was in the possession of accused Ramchandra Kalsangra and was used by him well before the blast.”

An entire volume of the ATS chargesheet, with eight statements in Nashik and five in Surat, documents the probe into the bike’s ownership. The Surat RTO and dealers show Pragya bought the bike on August 25, 2003 for Rs 23,333. The EMIs were cleared and full ownership was taken on September 4, 2004.

Having questioned the ATS’s methods in another section of its chargesheet and having challenged Patidar’s statement, the agency then uses the same statement to link Kalsranga to the bike. Witnesses also said that Kalsangra had two bikes and a four-wheeler — the LML Freedom was loaned for a “small duration”. In fact, the day Kalsangra met Pragya for the last time — October 8, 2008, after the blast — he came riding his own white LML Vespa, according to one witness.

The witnesses

The four statements the NIA selected from those taken on record by the ATS to show Pragya was ignorant of the conspiracy:

PW 21: A garage owner in Indore, he has said he knew Kalsangra since 2006 as he would bring his vehicles for servicing at his ‘Car Polish and Bike Care Centre’. The bike with number plate GJ 05 BR 1920 was brought for servicing for the first time in July 2008, and he charged Rs 465 for a full wash, repair and servicing.

PW 23: An RSS functionary and an electrician who worked under Kalsangra, according to the ATS chargesheet, he recalls seeing the bike for the first time in November 2007, during Diwali. When he asked Kalsangra, the latter confirmed it was Pragya’s bike. This witness later adds that he last saw the bike 15 days prior to October 9, the day of Raavan Dahan during Dussehra of 2008. He said Kalsangra earlier owned a Maruti van. The NIA has used the witness’s statement pertaining to having seen Kalsangra use the bike.

The NIA chargesheet also skips the witness’s mention of a phone call he overheard between Kalsangra and another person, in which Kalsangra is heard asking: “Sir aa gaye, Didi aa gayi kya?” This was on October 12, three days after Pragya left for Surat to be questioned by ATS, the last time Kalsangra was seen in Indore.

PW 32/46: Dilip Patidar, a witness who has been missing since 2008, was crucial to the ATS’s chargesheet, his statement having linked Kalsangra with Pragya. According to Patidar, Pragya stayed at Kalsangra’s house every time she visited Bengali Chowrah in Indore for Dussehra functions. Patidar was also the lone eyewitness to have seen Pragya and the two wanted planters, Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, together once on the terrace of the house.

While the NIA has chosen to dismiss Patidar’s statement as doubtful based on “dubious methods” adopted by the ATS to record statements, it has selectively used one line from his statement to back the point that Kalsangra was in possession of Pragya’s bike. Patidar is also the only witness who states: “Kalsangra told me he had borrowed the bike for a short term.”

Patidar’s statement in the ATS chargesheet says Kalsangra owned an SS Hero Honda, too, which he sold. He saw Kalsangra on October 11, 2008, when a BJP worker, Subhash Jain, came to pick him up. Since then, Kalsangra has been missing.

PW 30: A co-worker with accused Shyam Sahu, this witness according to the ATS chargesheet describes Kalsangra visiting the store often to take new SIM cards. The ATS used this witness to indicate that Shyam Sahu facilitated the use of SIM cards for Kalsangra without any paper trail, but the NIA chargesheet relied on only the last paragraph where the witness says he saw Kalsangra on an LML Freedom.

Meanwhile, Dharmendra Bairagi’s statement, which he later retracted, was that Kalsangra got mobile SIM numbers for him and Pragya so that they could speak on fresh lines on October 8 and October 9, 2008 —while she was on her way to Indore after the ATS had reached her house.

While the NIA has dismissed Bairagi’s statement, it has not taken into account PW30’s statement confirming the numbers and date of purchase of these SIM cards, or even the details linking Sahu to the conspiracy. The NIA’s chargesheet notes on this subject: “The witness says Kalsangra was using a golden colour LML Freedom motor cycle… It is also pertinent to mention here that during the year 2008, the norms for sale and purchase of SIM cards were quite relaxed and moreover accused Kalsangra and Shyam Sahu were close friends”.