Special NIA court to pronounce order in 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case today

ANI  |  General News 

A special Investigation Agency (NIA) court will on Thursday pronounce the order in blast case.

The court on Monday had reserved its order on the case.

On February 18, 2007, an explosion had occurred in in district of Haryana, claiming the lives of around 68 persons.

Out of the deceased, 33 were male, 19 were female, 10 were male children, and 6 were female children.

"Two unexploded bombs were also recovered from the site," the Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

"This terrorist act was committed by using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) along with the highly inflammable substances, which caused blasts and consequent fire in the compartments of the train no. 4001 UP Attari (Samjhauta) Express at Panipat, Haryana," the charge sheet read.

"The (Attari) train blast case of 18.02.2007 was a "dreadful terrorist act" in which two powerful bomb blasts were carried out by a group of people in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy with an intent to kill people and further to threaten the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of and to strike terror in the people of and in a foreign country," the charge sheet said.

The charge sheet alleged that all the accused were agitated and perturbed over the attacks on Hindu temple sites and towns by the Islamic terrorist groups. In order to retaliate to such attacks, the accused persons conspired to target the Muslim population.

Accused conspired, planned, executed the attack along with other suspects. They planted bombs in train along with other co-accused persons on February 18.

The investigation clearly established that the blasts which took place in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif were carried out by the accused persons in pursuance to a criminal conspiracy.

The filed the first charge sheet before a special in Panchkula in 2011 and named five accused namely alias Swami Aseemanad, Sunil Joshi alias Manoj Joshi alias Guruji, alias Ramji alias Vishnu Patel, Sandeep Dange alias Parmanand and alias Kalu.

While in 2012, a supplementary charge sheet was filed against two people, namely Kamal Chauhan alias Badrinarayan alias Vijay, and Amit alias Ashok alias

In the following year, in another supplementary charge sheet, the investigators of terror crimes named another accused alias Samunder alias Laxman Das Maharaj.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Thu, March 14 2019. 08:21 IST