The candidature of Sadhvi Pragya from the BJP in the 2019 General Elections has taken the political scene by storm. The accused in the Malegaon Blasts Case, widely believed to be a victim of the Congress’ efforts to invent Hindu terror, will contest the elections from Bhopal against Digvijay Singh.
As expected, liberals aren’t pleased with the Sadhvi’s entry into politics and have ranted quite a bit since her candidature was announced. And now, Leftist Propaganda outlet The Wire has published an article where it was claimed that Sadhvi Pragya was first arrested in a terror case by a BJP government and not Congress.
In the article, author Kashif has claimed that the Sadhvi was arrested by Madhya Pradesh Police in connection with the murder of another RSS activist, Sunil Joshi, in October 2008.
Author Kashif says in the article, “Sunil Joshi, whose name figured in the Mecca Masjid, Samjhauta and Malegaon blast cases was killed on December 29, 2007, in Dewas. On October 23, 2008, Dewas police arrested Thakur and others in connection with the murder case. However, on March 25, 2009, the police closed the case on the order of Dewas SP and Thakur, along with all other accused, was released.”
The author, quite clearly, appears to have confused dates. On the 23rd of October, 2008, Sadhvi Pragya wasn’t arrested by Dewas Police but by the Anti Terror Squad. It is further claimed that she was released in March 2009. In reality, she had been in Judicial Custody ever since she was arrested in the Malegaon Blasts case and was released on bail only on the 25th of April, 2017. Therefore, the claims that she was first arrested by a BJP government falls flat.
Sadhvi Pragya was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police in the case pertaining to the murder of Sunil Joshi. But that happened in 2011. In fact, the MP Police had already closed the case. It was only in 2010 that the case was reopened after the Rajasthan Police made an arrest that led the trail to Sadhvi Pragya. The case was transferred to the NIA in 2011.
Sadhvi Pragya was later acquitted in the case. “The contradictory evidence by police and NIA in the case raised serious doubts in the whole case,” the First Additional District and Sessions Judge of Dewas Rajiv Madhusudan Apte had said while acquitting her and others accused.
“The court has observed that the analysis of evidence gathered by the police and NIA reveals that in the sensitive and serious cases like murder, both the prosecution agencies carried out an investigation with prejudice,” the defence attorney said quoting the court order.
“They (police and NIA) didn’t conduct investigation seriously and the self-contradictory and weak evidence of the agencies were insufficient to convict the accused and the contradictory pari-materia (a rule of statutory interpretation) makes the prosecution highly suspicious,” he further added.
The Wire is known to peddle propaganda that appears to benefit only a single political party all the time. Its partisanship is such that its journalists defend even the most deplorable of comments from politicians as long as they are in opposition to parties of saffron hue. Thus, it’s only to be expected that it has spread Fake News, once again, about Sadhvi Pragya.
