MUMBAI, Sept. 19 -- The Bombay High Court on Thursday issued notices to former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, serving army officer Prasad Purohit, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and others on appeals filed by the families of victims of the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast, challenging the acquittal of all seven accused by a special NIA court on July 31. The court was hearing an appeal filed by families of six persons killed in the blast in Malegaon on September 29, 2008 who moved the court through advocate Mateen Shaikh on September 8, challenging the acquittal of all the seven accused in the blast. Special NIA Judge AK Lahoti, while acquitting the accused on July 31, held that suspicion could not replace proof. There was no "reliable and cogent evidence" to establish guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the special court said in its order, pointing at multiple gaps in the probe. In their appeal, the petitioners contended that lapses in investigation could not justify acquittal. Conspiracies of this nature are hatched in secrecy, making direct evidence rare, the appellants said, and accused the trial court of functioning like a "post office" by failing to step in when the prosecution's case faltered. The special NIA court could have summoned additional witnesses or posed questions to bring out facts, but instead permitted a "deficient prosecution to benefit the accused", the appellants said. The appellants accused NIA of "failing miserably" in protecting witnesses and not filing any perjury cases against witnesses who turned hostile. Citing alleged political interference in the case, they claimed that 13 crucial documents, which comprised key evidence against the accused, mysteriously disappeared from the court's custody. "Shockingly neither the prosecution conducted any inquiry, nor did the court order any investigation or registration of an FIR," they said. The appellants also alleged that NIA, after taking over the case from the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), watered down the allegations against the accused. They described the special court's judgment as "bad in law" and urged the high court to quash it. On September 29, 2008, six people were killed and around 100 were injured when an explosive device detonated near a mosque in Malegaon city in Maharashtra. "No sketch of the spot was done by the investigation officer while doing the panchnama. No fingerprint, dump data or anything else was collected for the spot. The samples were contaminated, so the reports can't be conclusive and are not reliable," the court said about the investigation in the case....