Mumbai: A special court on Tuesday framed charges against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five others under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sections of the Indian Penal Code in the September 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.

Judge Vinod Padalkar, presiding over the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court hearing, framed charges against the accused persons.

Under the UAPA, the accused have been charged with being part of a terrorist act, and under IPC they have been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder.

Framing of charges is a process after which the trial in a criminal case starts.

Apart from Purohit and Sadhvi, the other accused are Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.

All the accused were present in the court when the judge read out the charges against them.

The blasts took place on 29 September 2008 near Bhikku Chowk in Malegaon, Maharashtra. Almost simultaneously, another blast occurred in Modasa, Gujarat. The blast took place on the eve of Navaratri. Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon.

Two low-intensity bombs were fitted on a Hero Honda motorcycle and rigged to detonate in Malegaon. The motorcycle used later led the police to the accused. Initially, the blasts were suspected to be a work of Muslim extremists. The Mumbai Anti-terror Squad was deployed to help the Malegaon police in the investigation.

On November 4, 2008, the ATS arrested Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, a serving Army officer, for his involvement in the blast. The ATS investigation revealed that several of the accused may have been involved in other acts of terrorism including the Modasa blast in Gujarat, the Malegaon blast of 2006, the Mecca Masjid Blast in Hyderabad in 2007 and the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast. 
In April 2017, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur accused of plotting.