PANCHKULA (HAR) A special court here Wednesday acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others in the Samjhauta Express blast case which had left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead in 2007.
All the four accused, Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary have been acquitted by the court, NIA counsel Rajan Malhotra said.
The blast in the India-Pakistan train took place near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007, when it was on its way to Attari in Amritsar, the last station on the Indian side.
Aseemanand, who was already out on bail, and three others, who were in judicial custody were present in the court when NIA special judge Jagdeep Singh pronounced the verdict.
Before giving the verdict, the judge dismissed the plea filed by a Pakistani woman for examining some eyewitnesses from her country.
The court ruled that the plea of the Pakistani woman was devoid of any merit, Malhotra said.
The blast had ripped apart two coaches of the cross-border train.
The Haryana police registered a case, but the probe was handed over to the National Investigation Agency in July 2010.
The NIA filed a charge sheet in July 2011 against eight persons for their alleged roles in the terror attack.
Of the eight, Swami Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary appeared before the court and faced trial.
Sunil Joshi, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was shot dead near his home in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district in December 2007.
The three other accused — Ramchandra Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange and Amit — could not be arrested and were declared proclaimed offenders.
The NIA had charged the accused with murder and criminal conspiracy, and under the Explosive Substances Act and the Railways Act.
The judgment comes after 12 years after the terror attack.
Aseemanand’s counsel Mukesh Garg said, The court has said that the NIA has failed to prove any of its charges against the accused and the evidence against them was treated as not sufficient. Therefore, the court acquitted them.
There were 299 witnesses in the case and 224 of them were examined.
There was not any one witness who identified the accused, Garg further said.
The accused were implicated in this case under a conspiracy, he added.
Momin Malik, the counsel for Pakistani woman Rahila Wakeel, said he was expecting that the court would defer the matter to the next date even if the plea of his client stood dismissed.
According to the NIA chargesheet, the accused were upset with terror attacks on Hindu temples Akshardham (Gujarat), Raghunath Mandir (Jammu) and Sankat Mochan Mandir (Varanasi).
They then conspired to seek “revenge”, the NIA argued.
The NIA had claimed the accused were given training in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana’s Faridabad for making bombs and firing pistols.
The NIA had claimed that Sunil Joshi had planned the attack and the suitcase bombs were planted by Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary and Amit.
Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now
Be Part of Quality Journalism |
Quality journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce and despite all the hardships we still do it. Our reporters and editors are working overtime in Kashmir and beyond to cover what you care about, break big stories, and expose injustices that can change lives. Today more people are reading Kashmir Observer than ever, but only a handful are paying while advertising revenues are falling fast. |
| ACT NOW |
| MONTHLY | Rs 100 |  |
| YEARLY | Rs 1000 | |
| LIFETIME | Rs 10000 | |
