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Pune: In a startling revelation in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, a former Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officer said that he had been asked to apprehend RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. Mehiboob Mujawar, a former police officer, was part of the Maharashtra ATS which probed the Malegaon blast case before it was transferred to NIA.
Mujawar alleged that a senior ATS officer asked him to frame Bhagwat with an objective to establish that there was "saffron terror". The former police official claimed that he was asked to "go and catch" the RSS chief, adding that he had documentary proof to back his claims. The retired inspector's remarks came on Thursday after a special NIA court trial acquitted all the accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case.
The blast at Malegaon on September 29, 2008, left six people dead and 101 others injured. The special Nationa Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Thursday acquitted all seven accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, in the case due to lack of evidence, saying that terrorism has no religion. Mujawar said that the court's verdict exposed the "fake investigation done by a fake officer".
"I was included in this case so that 'saffron terrorism' could be proved. There was no saffron terrorism. Everything was fake. I was directly instructed to implicate RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, and these orders were given by the then Malegaon blast chief investigating officer Parambir Singh and his superiors," he alleged.
"I cannot say what investigation the ATS did then and why...But I was given some confidential orders regarding personalities like Ram Kalsangra, Sandip Dange, Dilip Patidar and Mohan Bhagwat. All these orders were not such that one could follow them," he said.
Mujawar said that as he refused to follow the orders, a false case was registered against him and his career of 40 years was destroyed. "It was beyond my capacity to apprehend a towering personality like Mohan Bhagwat," he alleged.
