Mumbai, Nov. 20: The Maharashtra government today booked all the Malegaon blast accused under a tough law that gives police powers to hold suspects in custody for one month at a stretch without having to justify the detention every 15 days.

The anti-terrorist squad (ATS) invoked the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against all the 10 suspects, includ- ing sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, army officer Lt Col Shrikant Purohit and self-styled god man Dayanand Pandey.

“We had arrested all the accused under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Explosives Act, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. We have (now) applied Section 3 of the MCOCA, which pertains to organised crime syndicates, after collecting the necessary evidence,” said special inspector general of police Hemant Karkare, head of the state ATS which is probing the September 29 blast that killed five persons.

Created as a special act to tackle organised crime, MCOCA provisions allow recording of a confession by a police officer of the rank of deputy commissioner.

Under the penal code, only confessions before a magistrate are admissible as evidence in court, while the maximum remand at a stretch the police can ask for is 15 days.

Criminal lawyer Prakash Shetty said under the MCOCA, investigators get 180 days to file a chargesheet, 90 days more than what IPC provisions allow. “There are also restrictions on granting of bail,” he added.

ATS sources said the squad would also book another accused, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, under the stringent act. The squad was today granted transit remand of Chaturvedi, believed to be a member of Abhinav Bharat, a Pune-based outfit suspected to be linked to the blast.

Karkare said his team had “solid evidence” against all the accused. “There is zero political pressure on us,” he said on allegations that the ATS was acting at the Congress’s behest. “Each piece of evidence is being verified, doubly verified before proceeding further.”