Out on bail, Malegaon terror attack accused Col Purohit gets back uniform

Mumbai, Aug 30: Lt Col Prasad Purohit, one of the accused in 2008 Malegaon saffron terror attack, has got his uniform back. Col Purohit was granted bail by the Supreme Court, last week.

Soon after his release from the Tàloja central jail in Raigad district, he reported to the Colaba Military Station in Mumbai.

Col Purohit, an officer of the Maratha Light Infantry, he was later assigned to Military Intelligence.

His last posting was in Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh. He is currently attached to the Pune-headquartered Southern Command.

Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008, in Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in the Nasik district of northern Maharashtra.

The 4,000-page charge sheet had alleged that Malegaon was selected as the blast target because of a sizeable Muslim population there. It had named Pragya Thakur, Purohit and co-accused, Swami Dayanand Pandey as the key conspirators.

It further alleged that it was Pandey who had instructed Purohit to arrange the RDX, while Thakur owned the motorcycle which was used in the blast.

Ajay Rahirkar, another accused, allegedly organised funds for the terror act, while conspiracy meetings were held at the Bhonsala Military School in Nasik, it had said.

Rakesh Dhawde, Ramesh Upadhyay, Shyamlal Sahu, Shivnarain Kalsangra, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Jagdish Mhatre and Sameer Kulkarni were the other accused.

It could be recalled here that within a month of the arrests of Purohit and Thakur, Hemant Karkare, head of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), who had exposed saffron terrorism, was killed under suspicious circumstances during 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. Several saffron extremists had celebrated the death of Karkare.