All accused of the Malegaon blast case to appear before NIA Court on 19 December

A special NIA court in Mumbai directed all the accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case to appear before it on December 19. Out of the seven accused in the matter, only three accused including LT Col Purohit, Sameer Kulkarni and Ajay Rahirkar were present before the court today. The court took note of their presence and directed all accused to be present in-person before the court. Besides these three, BJP MP Pragya Thakur, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sudhakar Chaturvedi are also accused in the case. The accused have been charged under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Explosive Substances Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.