MUMBAI: A witness in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, who had allegedly attended a meeting where accused Army officer Prasad Purohit and Sudhakar Dwivedi spoke about "injustice" being meted out to Hindus, turned hostile before the special NIA court here on Wednesday.
So far, 13 out of 218 witnesses examined by the special court for National Investigation Agency cases have turned hostile in the case.
The latest witness was declared hostile on Wednesday by the prosecution after he retracted his statement allegedly made before the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which had probed the case initially.
As per this witness' statement before the ATS in 2007, Purohit called and asked him to come and have `darshan' of `Swamy Shankaracharya' (Sudhakar Dwivedi) in Nashik.
The witness accordingly went to see Dwivedi.
At the meeting, where a few other people were also present, Dwivedi spoke about "Hindutva-vaad" and also played a CD on his laptop which had visuals of atrocities committed on Hindus.
Dwivedi and Purohit said this injustice was happening to Hindus and they were not doing anything about it, the statement further read.
Another person spoke about his anger towards Muslims and said there should be a bomb blast, the witness had told the ATS.
On Wednesday, the witness retracted this statement.
The other accused in the case include BJP MP from Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur.
On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town in north Maharashtra, some 200 km from Mumbai.