The dropping of all charges against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five others by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the 2008 Malegaon case makes a mockery of the country’s avowed fight against terror and reveals how the government and its agencies are ready to compromise on the fight. The NIA has also diluted the charges against another accused, Lt Colonel Shrikant Purohit, and 10 others in the same case. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which had investigated the case, had charged all these persons with conspiracy and terrorist acts which led to the death of seven people in bomb explosions in Malegaon. The intention was said to be to blame Muslims for the attack and create communal conflicts. The ATS had filed a charge-sheet against the Sadhvi and others who, it said, had planned and executed the attack.
The NIA is giving a different story in its supplementary chargesheet. It has hurt its own image and damaged its professional standing with its U-turn in the investigation. The NIA is a specialised agency formed for investigation of acts of terrorism. If it becomes a handmaiden of the government of the time and tailors its investigation to suit the politics and prejudices of the government, it will not have any credibility left with it. Its findings will not be believed within the country and outside. The NIA has higher responsibility than the CBI, which is known to be a caged parrot. When it wrongly investigates acts of terrorism and allows itself to be dictated to by the government, national security is at stake.
There have been indications after the NDA government came to power that the investigation and prosecution of terrorism cases where Hindus figure as accused might come under pressure. A number of witnesses have recently turned hostile in some cases. The suspicion is that the NIA has been pressured by the government to go soft in the case, as the special public prosecutor in the Malegaon case said last year. It has now even accused the ATS of having used torture to extract confessions from the suspects and planting and tampering with evidence. The BJP has always found it difficult to accept that Hindus would be involved in terrorist acts. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had once made a public defence of Sadhvi Pragya Singh. But politicisation of terror is risky and can have dangerous consequences. The NDA government should look at Pakistan to realise what would happen when terrorists are divided into “good” and “bad” and official policy is framed and implemented on the basis of politics and prejudice.