Trial in Samjhauta blast case resumes

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, March 9

The trial in the 2007 Samjhauta blast case resumed on Friday. The newly-designated NIA court of Additional Sessions Judge Neerja Kulwant Kalson summoned four prosecution witnesses on April 6 and 7. The prosecution witnesses are officials of the NIA, who investigated the blasts.

The order of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to re-designate the NIA court was received recently.

The trial was stalled in December last year after Additional District and Sessions Judge Gulab Singh was transferred. The blasts had taken place on February 18, 2007, killing 68 people, mostly Pakistanis. The train was targeted as Pakistani Muslims used to travel by it, as per the NIA charge sheet.

Of 290 witnesses, 216 have already deposed. Of these, around 30 turned hostile. The NIA on June 20, 2011, had filed the charge sheet against Swami Aseemanand and four others in the Panchkula NIA court. In the charge sheet, filed before the special NIA court in Panchkula, the agency had accused Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Sunil Joshi (now dead), Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalasangra, alias Ramji, of hatching the conspiracy, which resulted in the blasts near the Dewana railway station in Panipat in February 2007.

Timeline

• February 18, 2007: As many as 68 persons were killed when bombs were set off in two coaches of the Samjhauta Express.
• February 19, 2007: An FIR was registered at the GRP police post in Panipat.
• February 20, 2007: The Haryana Police formed an SIT to solve the case.
• December 29, 2007: Key accused Sunil Joshi was murdered in Madhya Pradesh.
• July 29, 2010: The NIA was handed over the probe.
• November 19, 2010: The CBI arrested Aseemanand from Haridwar in Uttarakhand.
• January 11, 2011: The NIA announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh each on Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra and Rs 2 lakh on Ashwini Chauhan.
• June 20, 2011: The NIA filed a charge sheet against Aseemanand and four others in a special NIA court in Panchkula.