Mumbai:
The nine Muslims who have spent four years in jail for the Malegaon blast should not be granted bail, said the CBI in court today.
On the 17th of this month, the men asked that they be released because of Swami Assemanand's confession that right-wing Hindu groups were responsible for the blast which killed 37 people in the communally-sensitive town of Malegaon in Maharashtra in 2006.
But the CBI told a special court for the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) that Swami Aseemanand's confession - recorded in December in a Delhi court - has yet to be verified. Other than that, the Muslim men have produced no valid reason for their bail.
The Malegaon investigation was handed over to the CBI in December 2006. For the next three years, the CBI did not submit any report on the case. In February last year, it said that there was no evidence to charge the nine men jailed for the Malegaon blast, but stressed that it believes they are indeed responsible for the terror attack.
That remains its stand in court, boosting the demand by politicians to ask that the government to submit a white paper on Hindu terror and the persecution of Muslim youth.
"LK Advani had said that all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. I can also say now that all RSS men are not terrorists but all terrorists are RSS men!'' said Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh today.