Aseemanand, 3 others acquitted in Samjhauta blast case
Panchkula, March 20, 2019: A special court in Panchkula on Wednesday acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others in the Samjhauta train blast case that left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead in 2007.
The verdict came after National Investigation Agency 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 blast in Samjhauta Express took place near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007, when the train was on its way to Attari in Amritsar, the last railway station on the Indian side.
On March 11, Rahila Wakeel, a Pakistani national and daughter of one of the victims of the blasts, filed a petition through advocate Momin Malik, to get her statement recorded as witness in the 12-year-old case. NIA counsel Rajan Malhotra said the application was dismissed as the court ruled it was “devoid of any merit.”
