The victims of the 2008 Malegaon blast on Monday pleaded in court to convict the seven accused facing the trial and award maximum punishment to them.

The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) judge, AK Lahoti, is hearing the final arguments against Prasad Purohit, BJP leader Pragya Thakur, Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.

While the prosecution has concluded its arguments and presented evidence, the defence lawyers for Thakur also concluded the arguments on Monday. The lawyers of the victims – who have been allowed to intervene – stated in the written arguments that “it has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt that the present accused and absconding accused are the only culprits for the terrible act of bomb blast and causing the death of six people and serious injuries to 101 people”.

This comes at a time when Thakur’s lawyers had claimed that the blast could have been carried out by the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). It was argued that SIMI office was located near the blast site where bombs could have been made, and they could be transporting explosives using the two-wheeler when there was an accidental explosion. The investigators, however, claimed that the motorcycle belonged to Thakur.

Meanwhile, the victims pleaded that the accused should not be given benefit of minor discrepancies in the testimonies of the witnesses, which could have been due to passage of time.