Shravan Krushnapaksha 5, Kaliyug Varsha 5116
Bhopal : Six years after Rajnath Singh publicly claimed Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi murder case, was innocent and harassed, the ministry of home affairs headed by him has given the go-ahead to National Investigation Agency (NIA) to prosecute her.
UPA had sat on the same request by NIA since January this year till it lost the elections. But it took the new home minister just two months of coming to power to give the green signal to prosecute the sadhvi.
On Friday, NIA informed a special court in Bhopal that it has got the MHA's nod to file a charge-sheet in the Sunil Joshi murder case and requested the court to grant time to prepare the charge-sheet, which was granted. Court has fixed the next date of hearing on August 19.
"Preparing a charge-sheet needs time. After scrutiny, MHA cleared our investigation report which was submitted in January this year. We will submit the charge-sheet against all accused, including Pragya Thakur," counsel for NIA, Subhash Bhattacharya, told TOI.
Speaking to TOI, the sadhvi's counsel, Pramod Saxena, said, "For six months, NIA has been saying it has sent the report to MHA for clearance. Bail and charge revision petition is also pending in apex court for more than a year. She is a cancer patient. Time is running out and these proceedings should be expedited," said Saxena.
Former RSS functionary Sunil Joshi was shot in Dewas on December 29, 2007, allegedly by fellow Hindu radicals. Though the state police in its charge-sheet alleged the Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur was the brain behind the murder of Joshi, it had ruled out a terror angle.
NIA took over investigations, stating Samjhauta blast accused Swami Aseemanand, had in his confessional statement named Joshi as a key conspirator in the train blasts and other explosions carried out in 2006-07. They believed that Joshi was eliminated as part of a bigger conspiracy.
Pragya Singh Thakur has been in custody since 2008 when she was arrested by Maharasthra police in connection with Malegaon blasts.
Later, she was arrested by Madhya Pradesh police from JJ Hospital in Mumbai on February 27, 2011, for Sunil Joshi's murder. She has been diagnosed with cancer and other ailments and is under treatment for several months at Pandit Khushilal Hospital in Bhopal.
Source : TOI
