CHHATRAPATI SAMBHAJINAGAR: The court of an additional sessions judge in Nanded on Saturday acquitted nine accused in the 2006 bomb blast in a house at Patbandhare Nagar in Nanded that killed two people and left four injured.
Two of the total 12 accused in the case died in the blast that occurred during the night intervening April 4 and 5, 2006, at the house of Laxman Rajkondwar, and another one died during the course of the trial that started in 2012.
“The remaining nine were acquitted by the court of additional sessions judge C V Marathe,” defence lawyer Nitin Runwal said.
The court pronounced the operative part of the order, and a full text of the judgement and order is expected to be released in due course. “The prosecution could not prove that the incident was a ‘bomb blast’ and not the explosion of a gas cylinder or some other inflammable object,” Runwal said.
The case was investigated by Nanded police and the Maharashtra ATS before it was transferred to CBI, which had filed the chargesheets.
The investigating agency’s claim was that the blast occurred during the process of assembling an explosive device.
“It was claimed that a live bomb was recovered from the site and later defused, and some cartridges too were found at the site,” Runwal said.
A total of 49 witnesses were examined in support of the prosecution’s case.
Another defence lawyer R J Paralkar told TOI, “The prosecution’s case was that on the night of the incident an assistant police inspector on patrolling duty heard a loud noise from the house at Patbandhare Nagar and rushed there. He found two people – Naresh Rajkondwar and Himanshu Panse dead and others injured. An FIR was registered by the Bhagyanagar police, which suspected it to be a case of bomb blast. The case was later transferred to state ATS and then to the CBI.”
Paralkar, who was assisted by lawyer Aarti Baheti in the case, said, “Of the 10 accused who faced the trial, Rahul Pande died during the course of trial. Pande underwent a narco test and three other accused had taken a brain mapping and lie detector test during investigation of the case.”
Paralkar said, “There was inconsistency in prosecution’s theory and the same appears to have been upheld by the court while acquitting the nine accused.
