’06 MALEGAON BLASTS CASE
Mateen Hafeez TNN
Mumbai: With the bail hearing in the 2006 serial blasts case in Malegaon to be held on Monday, relatives, friends and supporters of the nine local youths arrested for their alleged role in the attack are hoping that they get relief this time.
Several residents have been agitating against the arrests right from the beginning. “We do not believe the police theory that these boys (all Muslims) engineered the September 8, 2006, blasts. The ATS has wrongly framed them in the case just because they were suspected to be members of the outlawed outfit, SIMI. Now we are hoping that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is getting factual information about the actual culprits who have not been arrested so far,” said a member of the legal cell which is representing the nine accused.
During its investigation, the NIA found that the accused were wrongly implicated in the case and that rightwing groups are allegedly responsible for the blasts.
The bail application was filed before the MCOCA court and will be heard on Monday. Earlier, a CBI special task force which probed the case for two-and-a-half months this year had also indicated that the men were not involved in the blasts case and were wrongly implicated in the case by the ATS.
The Times of India, October 30, 2011
