No one killed RSS member Sunil Joshi: Sadhvi Pragya, 7 others acquitted by Madhya Pradesh court
Joshi, who had worked as an RSS pracharak for a significant part of his life, was shot dead a few hundred meters from his rented house in Chuna Khadan area of Dewas on December 29, 2007.
In Short
- Joshi believed to have been killed by his own men so that cops couldn't track down the saffron terror trail.
- NIA filed a chargesheet in the case in a special court in Bhopal after NDA came to power in 2014.
- The murder case was transferred to the Dewas court in September 2014.
A Dewas court in Madhya Pradesh today acquitted Sadhvi Pragya Singh and seven others in former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi murder case. Joshi, who had worked as an RSS pracharak for a significant part of his life, was shot dead a few hundred meters from his rented house in Chuna Khadan area of Dewas on December 29, 2007.
Only the next day on December 30, a particular community was targeted and four members of a family were killed as Joshi's associates tried to give the murder a communal colour.
Later it was suspected that Joshi was eliminated by his own associates so that the police could not track down the saffron terror trail that was allegedly involved in several blasts, including the Samjhauta blasts. Sadhvi Pragya, who was alleged to be in an integral part of the saffron terror network, was later arrested in connection with Sunil Joshi's murder.
MURDER CASE TRANSFERRED TO NIA IN 2011
The Sunil Joshi murder case was transferred to the NIA in 2011, which probed its connection with terror strikes that were linked with right-wing Hindu extremist organisation Abhinav Bharat.
A few months after the NDA came to power at the Centre in 2014, the NIA filed a chargesheet in the Joshi murder case in a special court in Bhopal and ruled out any connection with other terror strikes allegedly carried out by extreme right-wing groups.
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The case was transferred to the Dewas court in September 2014. A year later, the court framed charges against Sadhvi Pragya Singh and seven others on the basis of the investigation carried out by Dewas police.
Today's judgement, which came a little more than nine years after Sunil Joshi was murdered, has not helped answer the questions behind the mysterious murder. No one, at least from among those who were charged with the murder, have been found to have killed Sunil Joshi.