The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said that in the past two years it has served four notices to Pakistan to present the 13 witnesses in the Samjhauta Express blast case but got no response from the neighbouring country.
The NIA, which has been asked to submit a report by March 14, is likely to tell the special court that it tried serving summons on the 13 witnesses even a month ago but there was no communication from Pakistan.
Former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member Aseemanand is one of the prime accused in the Samjhauta Express blast on February 18, 2007 in which 68 people were killed.
Pakistani witnesses include the ones injured in the blast and relatives of those killed. The train runs twice a week between Delhi and Lahore.
A special NIA court on Monday deferred its order in the case following the filing of a petition by a Pakistani woman in the court to get her statement recorded as a witness. The petition was filed through a Panipat-based lawyer Momin Malik, who went to Karachi in 2015 to get back Geeta, a hearing- and speech-impaired woman, who had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan 13 years ago.
“We do not know what will be the locus standi of this particular witness in the case. Others have not come to depose despite summons. We earlier informed the court about the process taken to serve the summons and it had then decided that adequate opportunity had been given to the Pakistani witnesses…we will repeat our stand on March 14,” said an NIA official.
The official said that the only time Pakistan responded was in 2016 when it sought more time to arrange for the deposition of the witnesses.
“We have been serving the notices through the Ministry of External Affairs. They have failed to acknowledge the request. Now when the court was to deliver its verdict, a woman who claims to be the daughter of one of the Pakistani men who died in the blast, moved a petition that her statement be recorded as a witness,” said the official.