Samjhauta Express blast case: Swami Aseemanand, three others acquitted by NIA court

A special National Investigating Agency (NIA) court on Wednesday acquitted all four accused, including Swami Aseemanand, in the February 2007 Samjhauta Express link train blast in which 70 people were killed.

Swami Aseemanand after a special court acquitted him along with three others in the Samjhauta train blast case. (PTI Photo)

PANCHKULA: A special National Investigating Agency (NIA) court on Wednesday acquitted all four accused, including Swami Aseemanand, in the February 2007 Samjhauta Express link train blast in which 68 people, mostly Pakistani nationals, were killed. The verdict came after NIA special judge Jagdeep Singh dismissed the plea filed by a Pakistani woman for examining eyewitnesses from her country, saying it was "devoid of any merit". 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 court had reserved its judgment till March 14, following a fresh petition from a Pakistani national on Monday. 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 one witness who identified the accused," Garg further said. "The accused were implicated in this case under a conspiracy," he added. The NIA court had in January 2014 framed charges against them in the case. They were charged with criminal conspiracy, murder, attempt to murder, sedition under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Explosive Substances Act, the Railways Act, the Damage to Public Property Act and the Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act. Arguments in the case had concluded on March 6 and the NIA court had said the verdict would be pronounced on March 11. The blast on February 18, 2007 in the train, which runs between Delhi and Lahore, at Haryana's Panipat left 68 people -- 43 Pakistanis, 10 Indians and 15 unidentified -- dead. As many as 64 were passengers, and the other four were railway officials. A dozen people, including 10 Pakistanis, were also injured. Blasts took place in two coaches of the Samjhauta Express link train (Delhi-Attari) near a railway station in Diwana village, 160 kilometre from here. Aseemanand, a member of the right-wing group 'Abhinav Bharat', was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on November 19, 2010 from Haridwar, Uttarakhand, for alleged role in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad that killed 14 people. The NIA, which questioned Aseemanand about his role in the Samjhauta blast case, said it had evidence against him and others. Over 250 witnesses were examined during the trial, out of which some had turned hostile. The charge sheet in the case was filed in 2011, four years after the incident.