A witness in the 2008 Malegaon blast case who turned hostile claimed he was illegally detained and forced to implicate Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, besides four others linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
In its over 1,000-page judgment, special judge A K Lakhoti of a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court mentioned Milind Joshi Rao's testification that he was pressured by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) officials to falsely name Mr Adityanath, RSS member Indresh Kumar, former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Hindu seer and former RSS member Swami Aseemanand, and Professor Deodhar in the case.
Besides, Mr Rao also said the ATS illegally kept him in custody for a week and told him he would be freed only if he named the above five people.
Six people were killed when a bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded in a busy market in Malegaon, around 300 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008. The blast was initially probed by the state ATS before the case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the country's top anti-terror body.
All seven accused, including Ms Thakur, were acquitted by the court on Thursday on the grounds that there was "no reliable and cogent" evidence against them.
On Friday, a former probe officer alleged that the ATS was ordered to arrest RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat during the course of investigation. Mehboob Mujawar, who was a part of the ATS team that investigated the blast, also claimed there was an attempt to take the probe in the "wrong direction" and that false cases were registered against him for objecting to the plan.
"Mohan Bhagwat was going to be included in the case to make it appear like a saffron terror case," Mr Mujawar said. The BJP has in the past alleged that the investigation into the case was carried out with an intention to defame and frame right wing leaders and target the Hindu community.
"There was an attempt to conduct a fake probe into the Malegaon bomb blast but I was not ready for it. False cases were registered against me in this case but my name was cleared later," he said.
The NIA court, however, dismissed the claims.
The blast in Malegaon took place during the holy month of Ramzan, just before the Navratri festival, the NIA pointed out, claiming the intention of the accused was to strike terror in a section of the Muslim community. The trial, which started in 2018, got over on April 19 this year. The prosecution presented 323 witnesses, of whom 37 turned hostile.
The special court, on Thursday, observed that while the prosecution had proven a bomb blast did occur, it failed to establish that the explosive was planted on the motorbike.
