Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts that killed six people, has filed an application stating that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had not submitted the names of all witnesses in the trial. He claimed that truncated information was shared with him.
Lt. Col. Purohit filed an application through his advocate Shrikant Shivade. The application states, “The documents supplied to him are without furnishing the names of any witnesses and most of the documents are in the truncated form. The extent of truncation is so wide that it is impossible to construe the true import of the contents of the statements. By truncating the documents, the prosecution has deprived him of his statutory right to prepare for cross examination and his defence.”
It also says, “The primary object of criminal procedure is to ensure fair trial of the accused and as a presumably innocent person the accused is entitled to know the prosecution case against him. It is necessary to supply the names of those witnesses and it has severely hampered and caused prejudice to the accused.”
He needs at least four weeks to collect relevant information in respect to the witnesses to prepare and instruct his advocate. The NIA court has adjourned the matter to November 15. On November 2, the NIA had submitted a list of 286 witnesses including doctors, police officials, Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) experts, 202 panch witnesses and 216 panch and documents including letters and papers from FSL.
On October 30, the NIA court had charged Lt. Col. Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Sameer Kulkarni, Retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Ajay Rahilkar with murder, abetment and conspiracy under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
