Surat: The Mother, brother and sister of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur today said that they were happy about her finally getting bail in the Malegaon blast case but won’t forget the sufferings she had gone through in the last around nine years of her imprisonment.

Her sister Pratibha Jha, who live in Surat city of Gujarat, today said that for the past around nine years the family had not celebrated even a single festival in last nine years owing to incarceration of her ‘innocent’ sister and sufferings in the prison and tortures.

‘We can’t forget the past and her suffering but today it is like Diwali. We have not celebrated even a single festival in last around nine years since her arrest in 2008 but today we are very happy and feeling as if it is Diwali. It has come after a long ordeal. After completing the other legal formalities when she comes out of the prison we will celebrated it even more,’ she said.

To a query as to when will the Sadhvi come home, Pratibha said that as she was a Sadhvi and renounced worldly relations, she won’t come home but the family would go to meet her. ‘After coming out of prison she would go wherever the saints wishes her to go and devote her time for social causes. She had done many thing for social causes and that is what she is born for,’ Pratibha said.

Meanwhile Sadhvi’s mother Sarla Devi said that she won’t be able to forget the whole life the sufferings and pain her daughter endured. ‘Though the news that she has got bail and would come out of prison makes me happy yet the sorrow of her long sufferings will never leave me. I will not be able to forget her sufferings ever. My eyes still fill with tears remembering that,’ she said.

Brother of Sadhvi Pragya, Ananth Brahmachari, said that her sister had suffered torture and mental pain in the prison. ‘She had become frail by body (suffering from breast cancer) but she is still very strong in her mind. ‘I used to serve her in the hospital and have seen her suffering from close quarters. It can’t be forgotten but we are definitely happy. We hope that the trial will also expedite now and she would finally be absolved of the charges,’ he said.

Notably Bombay High Court today granted Shadhvi Pragya bail at a surety of Rs 5 lakh. 8 persons were killed when bomb fitted in motorcycle blasted in a minority area in Malegaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra in 2008. She was arrested the same year.

Last year, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which handles terror cases, dropped charges against Sadhvi Pragya and five others saying there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them. She was, however, denied bail by the Mumbai trial court, which questioned the NIA dropping charges against her.

DeshGujarat