After dodging the police for over two years, one of the conspirators of the 2008 Malegaon blast — Praveen Venkatesh Takalki, alias Praveen Mutalik — was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Tuesday.
Takalki (32), a member of the Hindu right-wing outfit Abhinav Bharat, was picked from Gokak town in the Belgaum district of Karnataka for his alleged involvement in the September 2008 blast in Malegaon, which killed seven people.
“Takalki worked as a personal secretary to Lt. Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit just three months before the blast,” said Rakesh Maria, ATS chief. Lt. Colonel Purohit is a key accused in the blast.
“He took directions from Lt. Colonel Purohit and was present in various meetings held in Nasik, Panchmahi and Pune,” said Mr Maria.
Surprisingly, Takalki never used his original name. “The chargesheet filed by the ATS in 2008 shows him as wanted by the name Praveen Mutalik,” the ATS chief said.
A special team was formed to traced Takalki after the MCOCA court declared him and two other conspirators, Ramji Kalsangara and Sandep Dange, as wanted accused in the case. “It took us three months to establish that Mutalik and Takalki were the same people,” Mr Maria said.
According to the ATS, Takalki slipped from the ATS’ radar some 15 days ago. “By the time our team reached his house, he had managed to flee,” Mr Maria said.
Acting on inputs, the ATS picked him up from his shop in Belgaum. He had been operating the shop, which deals in sale of SIM cards, in partnership with another person,” Mr Maria said.
On September 22, 2008, a week before the blast, Takalki had taken keys of the rented room of another blast accused Sudhakar Chaturvedi (37) in Nashik. According to the ATS, it was in this room that the explosives were assembled. “Forensic evidence has established that the samples of RDX collected from the room and the samples found at the site of the blast, matched,” Mr Maria said.
Though the ATS chief refused to comment on whether Takalki had planted the bomb, the special public prosecutor Rohini Salian, while seeking his police custody argued in the MCOCA court that Takalki was a “planter”.
and conspirator”. The MCOCA court remanded Takalki to police custody till February 14.
In 2008, the ATS had chargesheeted 11 persons including key accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt. Colonel Purohit. All the arrested accused were members of Abhinav Bharat.