Ajmer Dargah blast case verdict likely tomorrow

Our Correspondent 

Jaipur, March 7

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A local court is likely to pronounce its verdict in a bomb blast case in which three people were killed and 15 others injured at Ajmer Dargah in 2007. 

Dinesh Kumar Gupta, a special judge of National Investigation Agency (NIA), had last month put off the verdict in the case to March 8.  

A powerful explosion at Ajmer’s Dargah Sharif occurred in the month of Ramadan — the holiest month for Muslims — in what investigators said was an attempt to foment communal tension and riots.

Investigators also found an abandoned bag with unexploded bombs and two SIM cards on the scene of the explosion.

Rajasthan's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) first formally charged three people on October 20, 2010. The National Investigation Agency submitted its first supplementary chargesheet naming two people on April 28, 2011; second on July 18, 2011, with eight names; and third on October 29, 2013, with two.

In their chargesheets, the agencies accused some Hindu fundamentalists with links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of engineering the blast at the dargah, as well as one at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, to avenge attacks on Amarnath Yatra in 2002 and Raghunath Temple in Jammu by Muslim terrorist organisations. 

Of the 13 suspected, four are still on the run, with bounties of Rs.10 lakh each for information leading to their arrest.