Adil Bukhari
In 2007 bombing occurred around midnight on 18 February 2007 on the Samjhauta Express, a twice-weekly train service connecting Delhi, India, and Lahore, Pakistan. Bombs were set off in two carriages, both filled with passengers, just after the train passed Diwana near the Indian city of Panipat, 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of New Delhi. Seventy (70) people were killed in the ensuing fire and dozens more were injured. Of 70 fatalities, most were Pakistani civilians. The victims also included some Indian civilians and three railway policemen. The attack came just a day before then Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was to arrive in New Delhi to resume peace talks with Indian leaders. Initially National Investigation Agency (NIA) charged eight people in the terrorist attack, including Swami Aseemanand, a Hindu cleric formerly affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 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. Aseemanand was out on bail, while three others were in judicial custody. The NIA had charged the accused with murder and criminal conspiracy, and under the Explosive Substances Act and the Railways Act.
Last week All the four persons accused in this high-profile 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case were acquitted by a trial court. As per the statement of court, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had failed to prove the conspiracy charges, which gave the benefit of doubt to the accused. The Home Minister Rajnath Singh said there would not be an appeal against the acquittals. The government must desist from politicising these cases and ensure that the law takes its course. Special court , which acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others in the Samjhauta Express blast case, said a dastardly act of violence remained unpunished for want of credible and admissible evidence. NIA court Judge Jagdeep Singh said in his judgment that there are gaping holes in the prosecution evidence and an act of terrorism has remained unsolved.
After the court announced the judgement All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi expressed dissatisfaction on Swami Aseemanand and three others being acquitted in Samjhauta Express blast case. He also called the acquittal as ‘shoddy prosecution’. As per the Reports of The Indian Express “the acquittals in the Samjhauta Express case are not exceptional. There seems to be a pattern in these terror cases, where the prosecution has been found wanting in securing convictions. Investigators have held that the Samjhauta Express blast was part of a string of six cases, in which Hindutva groups and activists allegedly conspired to target Muslims and their places of worship. The terror strikes included bomb blasts in the Ajmer Dargah and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in 2007 and Malegaon in 2006 and 2008, and among the accused were Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Shrikant Prasad Purohit, a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army.
Twelve years since the incidents took place, the prosecution has managed to secure convictions only in the Ajmer case — a special court sentenced two RSS pracharaks to life while Aseemanand was acquitted. Last year, a special court acquitted all the accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case, in which nine persons were killed. In all these cases, a large number of witnesses turned hostile during the long-winded trial. In the Malegaon case, NIA special prosecutor, Rohini Salian, had told Indian express that she was under pressure from the agency to go slow. In fact, the NIA had dropped all charges against Pragya Thakur in the Malegaon blasts case in 2017. It was left to a special court to reinstate charges against her and Purohit under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a year later. Now there lies a big credibility question on NIA and Govt to deal with particular cases.
(The author a freelancer from central Kashmir. Views are his own)
