MUMBAI: Congress leader and former Maharashtra minister Naseem Khan on Thursday accused the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of trying to weaken the 2008 Malegaon blast case at the behest of the central government.
Khan, who is Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee's working president, on Thursday met state ATS chief Vineet Agarwal at his office here and handed over a letter to him, requesting that the agency's officers, who investigated the 2008 Malegaon blast case, attend every court hearing in the matter.
"The NIA is not prosecuting all the accused with honesty and sincerity, as 16 important witnesses, out of 223 in the case, have turned hostile and 100 more crucial witnesses are yet to be examined," the politician alleged in the letter.
"The NIA has not challenged any order passed in favour of the case accused in the higher courts, which shows its intentions clearly," he said.
Therefore, strict supervision of the ATS is required for fair trial and effective prosecution as the agency had recorded the statements of maximum number of witnesses and conducted most of the investigation, Khan added.
ATS as an investigation agency is being projected as anti-Hindu to malign its image, he said.
"In these circumstances, in order to maintain the trust of public in the ATS and in government, it is requested that ATS officers and law officers, who were part of the investigation of the case, attend the trial," the letter mentioned.
On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town, some 200 kilometres from Mumbai.
The ATS had probed the case earlier, before it was handed over to the NIA.