Mumbai: As many as eight Muslims accused in the 2006 Malegaon blast case were acquitted by a Mumbai court today, which ordered their release from jail. The development came in after the National Investigation Agency said that it has no evidences to link the nine arrested Muslims to the blast.

The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) in Maharashtra had arrested nine men, alleged to be the members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) after the blast that claimed 37 lives.

While one of the accused died, six others were released in 2011 on bail. Two others have also been convicted in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case.

 The NIA also did not object to the discharge applications filed by the arrested accused, saying evidence collected by it were “not in consonance” with those obtained earlier by the Maharashtra ATS and the CBI, which also investigated the case.

The 2006 bombings were a part of a series of blasts that rocked Malegaon in Maharashtra’s Nashik district, nearly 300 km away from Mumbai.