Mecca Masjid blast case: NIA court acquits Aseemanand, 4 others

A special NIA court in Hyderabad on Monday acquitted all the accused, including Swami Aseemanand, named in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case citing lack of evidence.

The court observed that the investigating agency had failed to prove the guilt of any of the 10 accused named in the case. Five of the 10 accused, who were arrested and faced trial – Nabakumar Sirkar alias Swami Aseemanand; Mohanlal Rateshwar; Lokesh Sharma alias Ajay Tiwari; Devender Gupta; Lakshman Das Maharaj, and Rajender Chowdhary — were acquitted on Monday. Two accused, Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, are still absconding. Another accused, RSS functionary Sunil Joshi, was shot dead during the investigation.

The accused belonged to right-wing Hindu organisation Abhinav Bharat floated by Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit who has been named conspirator in the 2008 Malegaon blasts.

In May 2007, a pipe bomb triggered by a mobile phone had exploded in the 17th Century Mecca Masjid close to Charminar in Hyderabad's old city area. The blast had killed eight and left 58 injured. The blast had also incited riots in various parts of the city in which five others lost their lives.

The FIR was registered at the Hussaini Alam Police Station. CBI took over the case in June 2007 and it was transferred to the NIA in April 2011.  During the investigation that followed, 226 witnesses were interrogated and 411 documents were exhibited.

Swami Aseemanand, along with a co-accused Mohanlal Rateshwar, was granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case in March 2017.  He was arrested in November 2010 from Haridwar in connection with the case and in January 2011, he had even confessed to plotting the Mecca Masjid blasts. The right-wing Hindu ideologue was acquitted in the 2007 Ajmer Sharif dargah blast and is on trial for the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings.