‘Purohit was gathering intelligence, as Army documents show’

The family members of Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Prashad Shrikant Purohit, who has been in judicial custody for eight years now, are hopeful that he will soon be a free man. 

The Bombay High court, which is hearing Purohit’s bail application, is likely to pass an order on the application on 30 January.

Purohit, who is a serving Army personnel, was arrested in November 2008 for allegedly taking part in the conspiracy to carry out Malegaon blast in September 2008 and allegedly procuring RDX to carry out the blast to target the minority community.

According to family members of Purohit, it was only now that the Army has submitted those relevant documents and papers to the court which prove that what he was doing was as per the orders given by his seniors.

‘There was an attempt by certain Army officers, along with the ATS, to frame Purohit as the face of Hindu/saffron terror.’

“The Ministry of Defence has submitted relevant documents to the court which show that he, as an intelligence officer, was asked to collect inside information on terrorist activities. He mingled with the other accused and attended meetings to gather intelligence information, which he communicated with his superiors in the Army. Even a court of inquiry was initiated against him and was completed in 2012. The court of inquiry did not find anything against him. But these facts were not shared by the Army with the court till recently. If they had shared these details with the court, Purohit would have been out of prison long ago,” a close family member of Purohit said.

The family members allege that there was an attempt by certain Army officers, alongwith the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, to frame Purohit as the “face of Hindu/saffron terror” during the previous political dispensation. “What else could be the reason behind this whole conspiracy? It is on record that the ATS used torture to extract statements from the accused. Purohit was treated as an accused and he received no support from the Army till last year. It was only in April 2016, when the Rakhsa Mantri directed that he should be given all the necessary documents, that the Army has now shared the documents and the findings of the court of inquiry with us,” the family member said.

The family members of Purohit and Purhohit himself wrote multiple times to the Ministry of Defence seeking documents related to his case that could be submitted to the court. But it was only in April 2016 that the MoD finally agreed to do so after Manohar Parrikar instructed them for the same.

Purohit, who was arrested within two months of the Malegaon blast, is still in service and has been receiving his salary, according to his wife who is a homeopathic doctor in Pune.