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‘Sadhvi’ Pragnya’s charges to be probed

NEW DELHI: National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has reportedly assured Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, that the allegations of torture and abuse against the police made by Malegaon blast case accused ‘sadhvi’ Pragnya Singh Thakur would be “investigated.”

Mr. Narayanan was accompanied by the Intelligence Bureau chief P.C. Haldar when he met Mr. Advani for 40 minutes here on Friday afternoon to brief him on the Malegaon case investigations.

The meeting followed a telephone call made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Mr. Advani on Wednesday to tell him that it was wrong for him to defend those accused of terror activities.

When Mr. Advani reportedly told him that his statement expressing shock at the alleged treatment meted out to Pragnya Singh and demanding a judicial inquiry into her allegations of torture at the hands of the police were based on her affidavit in court, the Prime Minister offered to have him briefed on the investigations by the NSA.

The Prime Minister also told him that the allegations made by Pragnya Singh were not correct.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters that the meeting lasted 40 minutes. “When Mr. Advani referred to Pargnya Singh’s affidavit the NSA assured him that the sadhvi’s allegations would be investigated,” Mr. Rudy said.

Sources in the office of Mr. Advani confirmed that Mr. Narayanan and Mr. Haldar had given details of police investigations so far into the Malegaon case in which several persons associated with an outfit Abhinav Bharat (not the charitable trust by the same name) – which shared the Hindutva ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP – are the main suspects.

What has been established so far is that Pragnya Singh’s motorbike was used to place the bombs outside the office of the Students Islamic Movement of India in Malegaon. The ‘sadhvi’ has reportedly told the police that she had sold the motorbike in question in 2004 to one Sunil Joshi, associated with the RSS. Joshi has since been murdered.