'ATS acted against Pragya Thakur under pressure from UPA government'

Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut on Saturday alleged that late Hemant Karkare-led Anti Terror Squad (ATS) acted against Pragya Singh Thakur in the Malegaon blast case under pressure from the UPA government. Thakur is BJP's candidate from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. Raut told ANI, "Congress was in power then. Everyone knows that ATS was under pressure".

Defending Thakur, Raut advocated that people should feel her pain. "We should understand Sadhvi's feelings and her pain," Raid said here.

Hitting out at the Congress for using the word 'Hindu terror', the Shiv Sena leader said that the action against Thakur was unjustified. "The way the woman was harassed and tortured, it does not fit in any rule of law. Then you (the Congress leaders) started using words like Hindu terror!"

The Shiv Sena leader said that terrorism has no religion and it was unfair to link terrorism to any religion. "We never supported linking terrorism with any religion," he stressed.

On Friday, Thakur said that Karkare lost his life in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack because she had cursed him. "I called Hemant Karkare and asked him to let me go if there is no evidence (against me). He (Karkare) said that he will bring evidence but will not leave me. I told him -- You will be ruined," she had said.

Pragya is among the seven accused facing trial in Malegaon blast case. Six people were killed and a dozen others were injured after a bomb placed on a motorcycle exploded in Maharashtra's Malegaon on September 29, 2008.

She was arrested in 2008 but was exonerated by the National Investigation Agency in 2016 for lack of evidence. However, the trial court refused to let her off, saying it was difficult to accept since her motorcycle was used in the blast.

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