Hyderabad: 14 years ago, when prayers took place on Friday at the historic Makkah Masjid in the Old City of Hyderabad, a bomb blast took place that left nine dead and at least 60 seriously injured. Five others were killed in police firing squad due to the violence that followed immediately after the blast.
But the pain inflicted during the blast remains fresh because the role of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has not been able to convict anyone in all these years.
A special court of NIA acquitted on April 16 all five accused caused by the pipe bomb in the mosque in 2007.
In a very interesting development, Justice Ravinder Reddy, within hours of delivering the verdict, resigned from his job, citing personal reasons, and was given uncommunication.
The role of the NIA was called into question because he could not prove guilty after investigating the accused for more than seven years after taking over the case from the CBI. The removal and relocation of Chief Pratibha Ambedkar, two weeks before the controversial verdict, has raised more eyebrows over the integrity of the NIA.
Post-explosion events
After the blast, according to The wire and several other reports, Andhra Pradesh police detained more than 200 people, mostly Muslims, for questioning, 21 of whom were charged.
Police have suspected the role of a Pakistani militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI), but investigations over the next few years have suggested the possibility of the role of a Hindutva terrorist equipment.
Eventually, Hindu nationalist organizations such as Abhinav Bharat were held responsible for a series of explosions that took place between 2006 and 2008, which could be listed as Samjhauta Express explosions (2007), Ajmer Sharif explosion (2007), Malegaon (2006) and Makkah Masjid Blast (2007).
Subsequently, Naba Kumar Sarkar (Swami Aseemanand), Pragya Singh Thakur (current BJP MP from Bhopal) and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit were arrested for allegedly leading the explosions at these places. A indictment has also been filed against three other people, RSS pracharak Devender Gupta, proper trader and Hindutva activist Lokesh Sharma and his leader Sunil Joshi who were assassinated in 2007.
The NIA, after the case was taken over in 2011, named Aseemanand, a former RSS activist, as the mastermind of the Maska blast and accused ten other people in the case, Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Sandeep Dange and Ramachandra Kalsangra (both former RSS activists)), Sunil Joshi (killed in 2007), Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar (a private employee), Rajender Chowdhary (a farmer), Tejram Parmar and Amit Chouhan.
All accused were acquitted
Aseemanand and Rateshear were granted bail in 2017, while three others were placed under judicial conditions. The wire reported that 226 witnesses and 411 documents were examined during the trial. Before the NIA took over, the CBI investigated 68 witnesses in the case, 54 of whom became hostile, including the scientist of the defense research and development organization Vadlamani Venkat Rao.
After the witnesses became hostile, the court could not find enough evidence to prosecute the accused. Aseemanand released from the Ajmer blast case and Makkah Masjid blast case, despite admitting his crime before police and the media.
Tehelka has published a 42-page report of his confession, in which he discusses in detail the various phases of the organization and execution of the explosion. In an interview with The Caravan, he admitted that he planned the bombing.
On December 18, 2010, Aseemanand told the magistrate in court: “I know I could be sentenced to death, but I still want to make the confession.” According to The wire, he talked about the role of prominent RSS leaders like Indresh Kumar in guiding those who eventually carried out the explosion.
Brief history of Aseemanand
In At a meeting in Gujarat in 2005, Caravan reported that Mohan Bhagwat, now head of the RSS, had heard Aseemanand’s plans “to bomb several Muslim targets around India” and said: “It is very important that this is done. “But you must not link it to the Sangh.”
Caravan also reported that Aseemanand allegedly said Narendra Modi met him during an RSS meeting in Ahmedabad and said: ‘Now it has been decided that I will be the prime minister. Let me come and then I will do your work. Rus gerus. ”
Source: The Siasat Daily