Saturday, November 15, 2008

funding in the terror strike in Malegaon case and other money transactions,

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Pandey was in touch with Sadhvi
15 Nov 2008, 0409 hrs IST, Mateen Hafeez , TNN


NASHIK: Police claim to have recovered a pass book belonging to Dayanand Pandey. The bank account, they said, will help them to ascertain Pandey’s financial transactions.

Talking about funding in the terror strike in Malegaon case and other money transactions, Misar added, ‘‘Ajay Rahirkar, treasurer of the Abhinav Bharat outfit, had given a huge amount money to Pandey and we want to establish whether it was used to procure RDX, explosives and timers used in the blast.’’

The police claimed to have recovered two unused timers from the other accused, Shamlal Sahu and Shivnarayan Singh. Pandey was brought to the court at 3.40 pm under heavy police bandobast. Wearing a khadi kurta and a lungi, Pandey, whose face was covered with a black burqa, spoke in fluent Hindi in court. He protested that his name was not Pandey but Sudhakar Dwivedi.

The public prosecutor stated in the court that Pandey attended several ‘confidential meetings’ conducted on April 12, 2008 at Bhopal, another meeting on January 26, 2008 in an ashram in Faridabad. ‘‘Pandey also attended an important meeting prior to the Malegaon blast in Pune,’’ Misar said. According to the police, the conspiracy for the Malegaon blast was hatched in these meetings conducted in several part of the country. ‘‘Pandey had arranged a meeting between Purohit and the prime accused, Ramji in August this year,’’ said Misar.

He told the court Ramji was yet to be arrested. ‘‘We want to know Ramji’s exact role in planting the bomb. The arrest of Ramji and another wanted accused Sameer Dange will help in the investigation. We have to locate Ramji for which we want Pandey’s police custody. We also want to find out if Pandey had any role to play in various other blasts across the country,’’ said the public prosecutor.

Pandey was also in constant touch with sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who is now in judicial custody. Her motorbike was used to plant the bomb. The ATS has claimed to have in its possession telephonic conversations between Ramji and Pragya where she asks him why only a few people died in the Malegaon blast. The ATS had earlier said that three accused, now in police custody, were fund raisers and collected money which was used in the Malegaon terror strike.

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