I was tortured for refusing to spread lies: Pragya Thakur on Malegaon blast case

New Delhi, Aug 3 (IANS) Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, recently acquitted in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, on Sunday claimed that she was tortured for refusing to spread false information during the investigation.

Speaking to the media at Bhopal airport on Sunday, the former Bhopal MP said, “I was asked to spread fake information, which I did not do. That is why I was tortured so much,” she said.

She also targeted former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh, calling him unfit to hold public office.

“Paramveer Singh is a bad, the worst kind of person. He is not fit to be an officer,” she said, in a direct and scathing criticism.

Thakur’s comments come in the aftermath of her acquittal by a special NIA court, which found insufficient evidence to support the terror charges against her.

The Malegaon blast in 2008 had killed six people and injured over a hundred, and the case had become a focal point in debates over so-called “saffron terror” in the years that followed.

In her first public statement on Saturday, Thakur delivered a scathing indictment of the investigative process, alleging custodial torture, coercion, and politically motivated targeting by senior police officials.

Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, Thakur claimed she was subjected to 24 days of sustained torture while in custody, naming former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh as the principal perpetrator.

“The atrocities they committed cannot even be described because words have a limit,” she said, adding that she had submitted written complaints naming officers involved.

Thakur alleged that investigators pressured her to implicate prominent figures, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, and BJP leaders Ram Madhav and Indresh Kumar.

“They told me, ‘If you name these people, we will stop torturing you.’ Their only purpose was to make me tell lies,” she said.

--IANS

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