Iqbal Khan
Pakistan aptly summoned Indian High Commissioner (IHC) to lodge protest and condemnation against the acquittal the four terrorists accused in the Samjhauta terror attacks by a Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) Court. This court in India’s Haryana state acquitted four individuals accused in the Samjhauta Express train bombing case on March 20. Train runs between Delhi and Lahore, on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Acquitted criminals also included Swami Aseemanand, the main perpetrator of train attack; he is an activist of the Hindu terrorist organization RSS. When attacked, Samjhauta Express train was headed from Delhi to Lahore. Nearly 70 people were killed in the blasts, which took place near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007. The explosions ripped through the train. At least 42 Pakistanis were among the victims of the terrorist attack. Around 224 witnesses of the total 299 testified before the court.
Pakistan had consistently raised lack of progress and concerted attempts by India to exonerate the perpetrators of this heinous terrorist act. Matter was raised repeatedly, including at the side-lines of the senior officials, during Heart of Asia Meeting in 2016. Formal demarches were also lodged regularly with India on the lack of progress and acquittal of the accused in other terror attack cases. “The acquittal of the accused, 11 years after the heinous Samjhauta terror attacks makes a travesty of justice and exposes the sham credibility of the Indian courts.
It also belies the rampant Indian duplicity and hypocrisy where India reflexively levels allegations of terrorism against Pakistan, while protecting with impunity, terrorists who had publicly confessed to their odious crimes,” said a statement issued here by Pakistan’s foreign office.
The Foreign Office spokesperson after news of the acquittal emerged, termed the development as “highly condemnable”. “We have received reports that 4 of the accused in the Samjhota Express bombing have been let go. This is highly condemnable,” said FO spokesperson. “What will we tell the families of the 42 Pakistanis who were killed in the attack?” he said.
An application filed on March 11 by a Pakistani resident, Ms Rahila Wakil, was dismissed by the court. The application had sought permission for out-of-court testimonies of Pakistani witnesses in the case. “The NIA Special Court has concluded that the investigating agency has failed to prove the conspiracy charge and ruled that
[the]accused deserve a benefit of [the] doubt,” The Indian Express quoted NIA Counsel RK Handa as saying. Probe was handed over to the National Investigation Agency in July 2010, which then filed a charge sheet in June 2011 after conducting a probe, indicting eight individuals.
NIA’s probe came to the conclusion that the accused were upset with previous attacks on Hindu temples and had conspired to target the Pakistan-bound train as revenge, according to NDTV. “The accused had conspired and propounded a theory of ‘bomb ka badla bomb’ (a bomb for a bomb),” NDTV quoted the NIA as stating in the charge sheet. Aseemanand had confessed to his role in the three blasts before a magistrate at Tis Hazari court, but retracted from his statement in 2015.
Beside Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, the accused persons include: Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan, and Rajinder Chaudhary, all of whom appeared before the court. Sunil Joshi, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was killed in December 2007, according to Indian media. The remaining three accused, namely Ramchandra Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange, and Amit, continue to be at large.
Only after legal experts had studied the order would the agency decide if the acquittals could be challenged in a higher court or not, said a senior NIA official. Earlier, NIA did not challenge the acquittal of Aseemanand and other accused in the Mecca Masjid and the Ajmer Dargah blast cases of 2007, which NIA had claimed were carried out by the same group. While nine persons were killed in the Mecca blast, three died in the Ajmer Dargah bomb blast. The verdicts in the cases came in 2017 and 2018.
Earlier in 2015 Pakistan had protested India’s decision to not oppose bail for the prime accused in the case. Pakistan expects India to take steps to bring to justice all those involved in the heinous act of terrorism on the Samjahuta Express. Pakistan also suspects the involvement of Colonel Prasad Purohit, a serving Indian Army officer, in the Samjahuta Express blasts. In 2008, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad had revealed that Purohit supplied the RDX used in the Samjahuta Express bombing.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on March 20, strongly criticised India’s condemnation of a terrorist attacks on two Christchurch mosques. The foreign minister has pointed out that India’s condolence of the attack, in which at least 50 people lost their lives, did not include the word ‘Muslims’ or ‘mosques’. Earlier India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had released a statement saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi had condemned the “heinous terrorist attack at the places of worship in Christchurch”. “If, God forbid, there had been an attack on a Hindu temple, Pakistan would have stood with India,” Qureshi added. Indian approach of hatred against Muslims is crossing all etiquettes and norms. International community needs to intervene and ask India to behave in a decent way.
Systemic Indian decision to gradually exonerate and finally acquit the perpetrators, is not only a gross reflection of India’s callous insensitivity to the plight of the families of the deceased Pakistanis, but also reflective of the Indian state policy of promoting and protecting Hindu terrorists. If NIA does not file an appeal against the verdict, Pakistan should take the matter to International Court of Justice and United Nations Human Rights Council.
Iqbal.khan9999@yahoo.com
