Image: India TV
 
The letter says that the NIA Court judgment had, “…shocked the citizens of Hyderabad as NIA failed to provide justice to victims in a terror case after a lengthy investigation of 11 years. This clearly shows the lack of preparation, commitment and dedication of the agency to fight against the terrorism.”
 
The civil society members have a few recommendations for the Home Minister. In their letter they say, “The government should immediately order an enquiry into the manner in which the whole investigation in this case was conducted and whether evidence collected by NIA since the beginning of investigation was placed before the court and what steps were taken by NIA for safeguarding the evidence, material records and witnesses in the case. Responsibility may be fixed for lapses in the prosecution of the case at every stage and civil and criminal action may be initiated against those found guilty of dereliction of duties and destruction of evidence.” 
 
The petitioners have also requested a retrial in the matter saying, “The government should ask the Attorney General of India to examine the trial court’s order and tender advice within two weeks for taking necessary legal action including filing of a request for retrial of the case and an appeal in the concerned appellate court. NIA may be directed to take necessary legal action accordingly expeditiously within the limitation period.” 
 
The entire letter may be read here.
 
Brief Background of the Mecca Masjid Blast
On May 18, 2007, a pipe bomb exploded in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, killing at least eight people, and wounding more than 50 people. Reports indicate that more than 10,000 people were in the mosque at the time of the explosion. Five other people were also killed when the police “opened fire” after there were riots during Friday prayers on that day. Police also recovered and defused two other live IEDs.
 
Ten people, all allegedly belonging to the right-wing Hindu organisation Abhinav Bharat, were accused in the case. These included Nabakumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma alias Ajay Tiwari, Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajender Chowdhary. Two accused–Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra–are still absconding. One of the accused, RSS official Sunil Joshi, was murdered during the investigation.
 
Wrongful detention of Muslim Youth
The Hyderabad Police conducted an initial probe, and reportedly detained more than 50 Muslim youth during the investigation. A fact-finding panel with the state’s minority commission found that the youth were illegally confined and tortured by the police. The youth were all subsequently acquitted, and, as per the National Minority Commission’s recommendation, the state government handed out monetary compensation to them. In September 2013, the Andhra Pradesh High Court set aside the compensation paid to the youth. 
 
Case goes from local police to CBI to NIA and finally in court
Following the police probe, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the Mecca Masjid blast case and filed a chargesheet. In April 2011, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case. The trial, which concluded in April 2018, took place at the IV Additional Metropolitan Session Court, a special NIA court, at Hyderabad’s Namapally court complex. The prosecution was led by the NIA’s Chief Public Prosecutor N. Harinath, who interviewed 226 witnesses. 64 witnesses, including Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, turned hostile during the trial. Purohit alleged that neither the CBI nor the NIA recorded his statement. 
 
Aseemanand’s Confession and Retraction
Swami Aseemanand, who was present at the Namapally court today, was arrested by the CBI in November 2010 in Haridwar over his alleged involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast. In December 2010, Aseemanand confessed to plotting the 2006 Malegaon blasts, February 2007’s Samjhauta Express blast, May 2007’s Mecca Masjid blast, and October 2007’s Ajmer Sharif blast, and also implicated certain RSS officials. 
 
In January 2011, following the news of Aseemanand’s confession, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad alleged that the Congress-led government was attempting to “malign the image of Hindu leaders by terming them as terrorists,” saying it was the “greatest lie” that Aseemanand had confessed. An editorial in the RSS’ ‘Organiser’ said it was “…intriguing that only persons named in alleged Hindu radicalism seem to be making ‘confessions’,” adding, “We have not heard of a Kasab or Afzal Guru or captured jehadi, terrorist making such a confession. Are they so tight-lipped?”
 
However, in March 2011, Aseemanand submitted a letter to an Ajmer court saying, “I have been pressurized mentally and physically by the investigating agencies to confess that I was behind these blasts.” He also alleged that the investigative agencies, such as the NIA and the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) were involving his family members in the case, and accused Rajasthan’s ATS unit of not allowing him to engage a lawyer. 
 
Other evidence
Forensic reports from the NIA indicated a link between the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon blasts, the 2007 Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid blasts, the 2008 Modasa and the 2006 Samjhauta Express blasts. In March 2017, Aseemanand was acquitted in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, and later granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case.

The post Civil Society urges GOI to challenge Mecca Masjid blast case judgment appeared first on SabrangIndia.

After few days of the blast, a Special Investigation Cell (SIC) was formed and police started picking up Muslim youth from old city that too in plain clothes and without number plate vehicles. Even the youth injured in the blast were not spared, they were also summoned and interrogated as to why did they go to Masjid and what were they doing in the Masjid? Hundreds of Muslim youth were picked up, kept at illegal detention centres in the outskirts of Hyderabad city, inhumanly tortured, abused and pressured to take the responsibility of Makkah Masjid bomb blast and if they do not accept, they would be killed in an encounter. After few days all the detained were released and 29 of them were shown arrested; they were sent to judicial custody, where they were in jail for 6-8 months after which they were released on bail. Though they were picked up in connection with the so-called investigation of Makkah Masjid bomb blast, instead they were implicated in false cases of ‘conspiracy against the State and Asiatic powers’ and other cases.

The Hyderabad police registered two cases, one of the exploded bomb and the other of an unexploded bomb; exploded bomb blast case was handed over to CBI. Police also prepared a confidential report, in which it was mentioned that Muslim community has sect differences among them, and the blast was carried out by the Ahle Hadees sect to teach a lesson to the Sunnat ul Jamaat sect.

The then AP State Minorities Commission had appointed an Advocate General, L Ravichander to look into the torture. He brought out a detailed report saying that third-degree inhuman torture has been inflicted upon the Muslim youth. The State Minorities Commission submitted that report to the state government but it was not made public. The government had also formed a one-man commission namely Justice Bhaskar Rao Commission to look into the indiscriminate police firing on the people after the bomb blast. The police personnel justified the firing by stating that the mob wanted to attack a petrol pump nearby and to control them and in self-defence, police had to start firing. This was again justified by the Bhaskar Rao Commission. Though the report is submitted to the government, it has not been tabled in Assembly for discussion nor has been made public.

To understand Makkah Masjid bomb blast, subsequent police firing and implication of Muslim youth one have to also know about the political conditions of Hyderabad post-bomb blast. Every time in the country when there is some burning issue and the debate happening around it, suddenly something big happens that completely diverts the attention of the people from the serious issue. The same happened in this case as well. Before Makkah Masjid bomb blast took place, the matter of Sohrabuddin encounter was very much in the news and debates as the top police officials, politicians’ involvement was being questioned.

Sheikh Sohrabuddin, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati were killed by the Gujarat police with the help of Hyderabad and Rajasthan police in the year 2005. Almost after a year of investigation it was revealed that these three people were killed in cold blood but not in encounter. Few Hyderabad police officers had provided logistical support to the Gujarat police in carrying out encounter of Sohrabuddin. The Supreme Court also questioned “What was the motive of the Andhra Pradesh police to join the conspiracy?”. As the investigation was going deep and many truths were unravelling in connection of Sohrabuddin killing, wherein the state of Gujarat, its police, Rajasthan police and Hyderabad police were being exposed, the Makkah Masjid bomb blast took place which completely diverted the attention of the people, press as well as Judiciary from the Sohrabuddin encounter and the involvement of State of Gujarat, Rajasthan police and Hyderabad police. To hide itself from the involvement of Sohrabuddin encounter, few communal minded police personnel of Hyderabad including IPS officers had woven the stories behind the blast and implicated Muslim youth and tortured them inhumanly.

When the CBI started investigation on the bomb blast case, they came out with the names of real terrorists, i.e. Hindutva terrorists were exposed. Initially CBI filed charge sheet against three persons namely Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Sunil Joshi. Later, CBI arrested Aseemanand from Haridwar in the year 2010. Aseemanand and his team carried not just Makkah Masjid bomb blast but also other blasts in the country such as blasts at Ajmer dargah in 2007, Samjhauta Express in 2007 and Malegaon blast in 2006 & 2008 to teach a lesson to the Muslim community. So, CBI was investigating all the blast cases; after these Hindutva terrorists were arrested, the pressure on Muslim youth was lowered and later the court acquitted all the Muslim youth who were implicated in false cases. While in judicial custody in Charlapally jail of Hyderabad, Aseemanand met one of the arrested Muslim youth, Kaleem; he was inspired by Kaleem and his conscious woke up. As part of investigation of all the terror cases, Aseemanand was taken to CBI Headquarters for further investigation; there Aseemanand wanted to confess his crime and got ready to give confessional statement. He recorded his confession in front of a Metropolitan Magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. The magistrate informed Aseemanand that this confession under 164 CrPC will bring him death sentence and told him to think for two more days about the confession. On December 18, 2010, he told the magistrate in the court, “I know I can be sentenced to the death penalty but I still want to make the confession.” If a person makes a confessional statement under section 164 of CrPC and contradicts himself during the trial, he may be convicted of giving false evidence intentionally.

In the detailed interview given to The Caravan, Aseemanand named RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar. Aseemanand told in the interview that, “Then they (Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar) told me, ‘Swamiji, if you do this we will be at ease with it. Nothing wrong will happen then. Criminalisation nahin hoga (It will not be criminalised). If you do it, then people won’t say that we did a crime for the sake of committing a crime. It will be connected to the ideology. This is very important for Hindus. Please do this. You have our blessings.’”
The investigation of these blast cases was going on in a proper and right direction by the CBI and then in the year 2011, it was taken over by the NIA (National Investigation Agency) formed in the year 2009 to look into the terror cases. NIA named Aseemanand as mastermind of Makkah Masjid bomb blast and nine others namely Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Sandeep Dange and Ramachandra Kalsangra (both former RSS activists who are absconding), Sunil Joshi (murdered in 2007), Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar, Rajender Chowdhary, Tejram Parmar and Amit Chouhan.

NIA Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian was handling the Malegaon bomb blast case. But as soon as BJP came to power in 2014, she was instructed to go soft on the accused Hindutva terrorists, but she did not budge and then without any explanation she was ousted from the case and then the special NIA court acquitted all the 12 accused in Malegaon blast case. At the time when Ms. Salian was asked to go soft, NIA chief Sharad Kumar who is very close to BJP and was to retire in 2015, was given extension. The same happened with Makkah Masjid bomb blast case as well. Pratibha Ambedkar was the officer-in-charge of this case and she was transferred two weeks before the verdict. During the trial at Hyderabad court, 226 witnesses and 411 documents were examined. 65 of them turned hostile, even the police personnel who were to depose before the court also turned hostile. In the course of trial, some important files including Aseemanand’s statements were missing from the court. The prosecution was unable to prove the evidences; this is understood with the bringing in of RSS background special Public prosecutor. One important thing which was mentioned by Ms. Rohini Salian is that the accused in the Malegaon case were made witness in Makkah Masjid bomb blast case, obviously they would turn hostile. Even the Judge played hand in glove with the prosecution by saying that the facts and circumstances of the Metropolitan Magistrate who recorded Aseemanand’s statement does not apply to the case i.e. of confession under Section 164 CrPC and thus keeps it aside. The Judge has noted that, “The conspiracy of all the accused in this case has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution failed to prove the guilt. The five accused are not found guilty for the offences and are acquitted”.

This very important case wherein the Hindutva terrorists were involved in carrying out blasts at various places in the country, all the agencies such as the police, the local state and the central government, the investigating agencies, the Prosecution and even Judiciary failed in providing justice even when all the strong pieces of evidence were present.

Thus, the special NIA court in Hyderabad acquitted the five Hindutva terrorists on 16th April 2018. Out of eight Hindutva terrorists, five are acquitted, one is killed by their own RSS men and two are absconding. After acquitting all the five Hindutva criminals, the judge resigned within few hours of his verdict. This act of his raises many questions on the verdict as well as on the judge itself. There is huge conspiracy behind such kind of judgment and immediate resignation of Judge. People were waiting for the delivery of justice and with such kind of verdict and resignation he tried to shift the debate from the biased judgment towards his resignation. Few people felt that he must have given such kind of judgment under pressure and some others opined that he was under corruption charges so he resigned. So, instead of debate to be taken place on biased verdict, the debate shifted on his resignation.

People lost confidence from the judiciary as well. The last step in getting justice is only the judiciary and when judiciary also plays hands in glove with the criminals and perpetrators, what saves this country from! Now all the Hindutva terrorists are free, some are out on bail and some are acquitted. Only the criminals would be ruling the country and the constitution is great danger in such situations.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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Image: PTI

The Mecca Masjid Blast
On May 18, 2007, a cell phone triggered pipe bomb exploded in the Wazukhana or the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad killing 8 people and injuring 58 others. Nearly 10,000 people were offering Friday prayers at the time of the blast. Two unexploded IEDs were later recovered from the site. The explosions led to panic and also violent retaliation. Some members of the minority community went on a rampage destroying public property. The police came in for scathing criticism when it fired indiscriminately at them killing 5 people.

The HuJI Angle and Wrongful Detention of Muslim Youth
The Hyderabad Police conducted an initial probe, and pointed a finger of suspicion toward the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI). A man named Bilal, linked to HuJI was blamed for the attack. He was later killed in a shootout. The police reportedly detained more than 50 Muslim youth during the investigation.

A fact-finding panel with the state’s minority commission found that the youth were illegally confined and tortured by the police. The youth were all subsequently acquitted, and, as per the National Minority Commission’s recommendation, the state government handed out monetary compensation to them. In September 2013, the Andhra Pradesh High Court set aside the compensation paid to the youth. 

Cases bounces from local cops to CBI to NIA
After the CBI took over the case, it filed a chargesheet against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak Devendra Gupta and RSS activist Lokesh Sharma. They were said to be working with another former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on December 29, 2007 in Dewas.

The NIA took over in 2011 and filed a supplementary chargesheet against former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist and self-styled cleric/preacher Aseemanand, alias Naba Kumar Sarkar. They claimed he was a key player in radicalising and recruiting people for the purpose of exacting ‘Saffron vengeance’. Five people were arrested: Aseemanand, Gupta, Sharma, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajendra Chowdhry. Two accused–Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra–are still absconding.

Evidence vs Confessions
There was little evidence provided and the prosecution’s case was built entirely on confessional statements. Aseemanand, who was one of the main accused and who had also been implicated and later acquitted in the Ajmer blast case had confessed to his involvement in the Mecca Masjid blast in December 2010. By January right wing groups started claiming that Aseemanand was forced to make a false confession. In April that year, Aseemanand too retracted his confession saying it had been extracted under duress. The conspiracy charge that was based on call data records of the accused and witnesses who had attended meetings mentioned in Aseemanand’s confession. Most of the witnesses turned hostile in court.

The NIA alleged Aseemanand said, “Bomb ka jawaab bomb se dena hai,” in his meetings with other accused, but was eventually unable to prove this in court. The prosecution also relied on the comparision between explosives used in the Ajmer blasts and the Mecca Masjid blasts. However, in Aril 2017, a Jaipur court acquitted Aseemanand in the Ajmer blast. This further weakened the prosecution’s case against Aseemanand in the Mecca Masjid matter. Of the 226 witnesses sited, none apart from the official witness supported the prosecution.

Moreover, a red shirt suspected to have belonged to one of the persons who planted the bomb was recovered from the blast site by the local police. But this key piece of evidence never made it to the NIA when it took over the case from the CBI.

The Curious Case of Devendra Gupta
Devendra Gupta, a former RSS pracharak was named by the CBI as one of the first accused in the case along with Aseemanand. He was found guilty in the Ajmer blast case, where the NIA was able to prove in court that Gupta had cellphone SIM cards used to time and trigger the bombs kept at the Sufi shrine.

This is pertinent because SIM cards from this very set were used to trigger the blast at Mecca Masjid. According to the chargesheet, these SIM cards had been purchased by Gupta and his accomplices Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange under fake names from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. They were used to not only communicate and discuss the conspiracy but also as triggers for the bombs. In fact, a SIM card from an unexploded bomb from Mecca Masjid had match with a phone used in the Ajmer Dargah blast.

However, the NIA failed to convince the court of Gupta’s complicity in the Mecca Masjid case and he was acquitted along with Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajendra Chowdhry, on April 16. 

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Image Courtesy: The Indian Express
 
Ten people, all allegedly belonging to the right-wing Hindu organisation Abhinav Bharat, were accused in the case. These included Nabakumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma alias Ajay Tiwari, Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajender Chowdhary. Two accused–Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra–are still absconding. One of the accused, RSS official Sunil Joshi, was murdered during the investigation.
 
Wrongful detention of Muslim Youth
The Hyderabad Police conducted an initial probe, and reportedly detained more than 50 Muslim youth during the investigation. A fact-finding panel with the state’s minority commission found that the youth were illegally confined and tortured by the police. The youth were all subsequently acquitted, and, as per the National Minority Commission’s recommendation, the state government handed out monetary compensation to them. In September 2013, the High Court set aside the compensation paid to the youth. 
 
How the Investigation and Trial progressed
Following the police probe, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the Mecca Masjid blast case and filed a chargesheet. In April 2011, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case. The trial, which concluded last week, took place at the IV Additional Metropolitan Session Court, a special NIA court, at Hyderabad’s Namapally court complex. The verdict was scheduled for today, April 16. The prosecution was led by the NIA’s Chief Public Prosecutor N. Harinath, who interviewed 226 witnesses. 64 witnesses, including Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, turned hostile during the trial. Purohit alleged that neither the CBI nor the NIA recorded his statement. 
 
Aseemanand’s Confession and Retraction
Swami Aseemanand, who was present at the Namapally court today, was arrested by the CBI in November 2010 in Haridwar over his alleged involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast. In December 2010, Aseemanand confessed to plotting the 2006 Malegaon blasts, February 2007’s Samjhauta Express blast, May 2007’s Mecca Masjid blast, and October 2007’s Ajmer Sharif blast, and also implicated certain RSS officials. 
 
In January 2011, following the news of Aseemanand’s confession, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad alleged that the Congress-led government was attempting to “malign the image of Hindu leaders by terming them as terrorists,” saying it was the “greatest lie” that Aseemanand had confessed. An editorial in the RSS’ ‘Organiser’ said it was “…intriguing that only persons named in alleged Hindu radicalism seem to be making ‘confessions’,” adding, “We have not heard of a Kasab or Afzal Guru or captured jehadi, terrorist making such a confession. Are they so tight-lipped?”
 
However, in March 2011, Aseemanand submitted a letter to an Ajmer court saying, “I have been pressurized mentally and physically by the investigating agencies to confess that I was behind these blasts.” He also alleged that the investigative agencies, such as the NIA and the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) were involving his family members in the case, and accused Rajasthan’s ATS unit of not allowing him to engage a lawyer. 
 
Other evidence
Forensic reports from the NIA indicated a link between the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon blasts, the 2007 Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid blasts, the 2008 Modasa and the 2006 Samjhauta Express blasts. In March 2017, Aseemanand was acquitted in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, and later granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case. 
 
The curious testimony of Shaikh Abdul Kaleem
In April 2017, Shaik Abdul Kaleem, 27, to whom Aseemanand allegedly admitted his involvement in the Mecca Masjid blast when they were both at Hyderabad’s Chanchalguda Jail, said he wanted to write a memoir, but questioned who would agree to publish it. He said, “When I heard Aseemanand was acquitted in the Ajmer blast case, I could not believe it. I could not believe when he was granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case also. I put my life at risk and went to Ajmer and Panchkula to give evidence based on what Aseemanand confessed to me… at Chanchalguda Jail”.
 
According to Kaleem, Aseemanand told him “how he and his group planned and executed the blasts, and apologised to me because I had to spend time in jail while he was the accused. He repented that”. Kaleem was detained by the police in July 2007 following the Mecca Masjid blast over the suspicion of being involved in terror activities. He was in jail for a year, and was acquitted in July 2008. Since then, he also spent time in jail in relation to another case, and was booked for alleged assault in a third case.

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More than a decade after the Mecca Masjid bomb blast, and the police firing that followed, killing five people, the state is reportedly yet to make the findings of the Justice Bhaskara Rao Commission public.

Writing for the Times of India, Syed Mohammed reports that the state had declined an RTI activist a copy of the report for academic purpose in November last year. 

The report adds that, when the case came up for hearing on Tuesday before chief information commissioner (CIC) M Ratan, RTI activist SQ Masood was present, but there was no official from the general administration department. 

The commission had sent both the parties a notice on January 2 to detail what action had been taken on the RTI query. 

"Apart from asking for the terms of reference (ToR) of the panel, I also asked for a copy. And if this is not possible, I requested for time so that I could read the report, which is permissible under provisions of the RTI Act," Masood told TOI. 

In the reply to the query, the state had said that the report had been placed in the state legislature, and sharing the information could cause a "breach of privilege."

On May 18, 2007, members belonging to the Hindu militant outfit Abhinav Bharat had allegedly placed two bombs in the Mecca Masjid, considered one of holiest Muslim sites in the city, during Friday prayers when thousands of people had gathered.

As news of the blast spread, tension escalated in Old City, especially the areas around Charminar, with many people taking to the streets, and turning into vandalising mobs, who clashed with the police.

The police resorted to lathi-charges, teargas shells, and firing in the air. 

The police claimed that the mob was getting out of control, and it had to fire at the people to disperse the crowd. Five people were killed, and four were injured in the firing at two places.

However, many people including the AIMIM and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the police used excessive force.

In June 2010, the state government constituted the Justice Bhaskar Rao commission, which submitted its findings in October the same year.

There have been continuous demands since then on successive state governments, to release the findings of the report.

Courtesy: The News Minute

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Whether Indian Intelligence Agencies have decided to function as new ‘post offices’ of US intel agencies? Put it other ways whether US intel inputs have started overriding the meticulous investigations done by Indian intelligence agencies?

There are enough indications which seem to corroborate this observation.

And perhaps the latest in the series seems to be the Samjhauta Express bomb blast case, where NIA seems to be contemplating putting the blame on Lashkar terrorists and absolving the Hindutva terrorists involved in the case basing itself on some vague input from US supposedly involving Lashkar-e-Toiba operative. In fact, anyone who has closely followed functioning of NIA of late would have noticed that news had started trickling in since beginning of April 16 itself where the agency which was keen to “wrap up probe into the terror attack” had suddenly woken up to the role of the dreaded outfit. Reports suddenly started appearing in leading national dailies about NIA chief travelling to US “[t]o meet his US counterparts and get more details about the involvement of the LeT financier Arif Qasmani in the incident, government sources said.”

While one could hear voices of moderation where legal eagles did point out the difficulties in suddenly ‘shifting’ the blame from Hindutva terrorists to LeT, it was getting clear that the investigating agencies has made its mind to revise its earlier focus of investigation:
 

Remember that the chargesheet filed by the NIA had already focussed on the role of RSS Pracharak Aseemanand who had propounded a ‘bomb ka badla bomb theory’ supposedly to give a fitting reply to the "perceived persecution of Hindus by the members of the Muslim community".

And by the end of May a media house even shared the news with its readers that,

Remember the case is under trial at a court in Panchkula, and 19 witnesses have turned hostile so far. The 68 people killed in the incident on February 18, 2007 near Panipat included both Indians and Pakistanis.

II
Perhaps an indication of this changed atmosphere can also be had from a recent interview by Vikash Narain Rai, who was former DG (Law and Order) Haryana and who had headed the SIT ( Special Investigation Team) which was constituted to investigate the Samjhauta Express explosion of February 2007 wherein he told Seema Mustafa that their team had  “[c]onfirmed the involvement of the Sunil Joshi group in the Samjhauta explosion and the fact that no one from SIMI was involved,” In this exclusive interview to The Citizen he details,

This interview follows a Facebook post by him wherein he had shared the manner in which a news channel interviewed him about this investigation wherein he categorically told “…[N]ews X that the SIT had totally ruled out the involvement of any Pakistani hand or Simi group in the dastardly crime.” In fact he emphatically,

According to him, “the explosives that had been put together to ensure that the fire would expand in a moving train, and not subside with the one burst, were planted in suitcases.” All of these had been destroyed but as Rai recalls, “we were very lucky to find one such suitcase intact.” 

The make of the suitcase took the investigators to Indore, to a Raghunandan attache shop which was owned by a Bora Muslim and had two young employees, a Hindu and a Muslim. On further questioning the two employees said that two men who appeared to be Hindus who spoke in a local Indori accent, and were clearly from the city itself had purchased the suitcase.

On further investigation the team ‘established two facts as Rai put it: one, the Samjhauta case involved Sunil Joshi and his men; and two, there was no SIMI or Pakistan hand in this. According to him the investigation could not move further because of “complete non-cooperation from Madhya Pradesh and more specifically from Indore.”

Rai said that in meetings held by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the time the Investigating Officers of Malegaon, Ajmer and other such terror attacks would exchange notes pointing towards the involvement of Hindu groups…
Interestingly Rai recalls a long conversation he had with the then Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare. He said that Karkare, investigating the Malegaon blasts, also said that he had considerable evidence that the Hindu extremists were involved in this case as well. He told Rai that he was putting the evidence together and would get back to him with more details as soon as he had stitched the loose ends. Rai said that this did not happen as Karkare was murdered soon after in the Mumbai terror attack.

III
Anyone who has followed the case knows that this particular case has seen many shifts and turns.

And when the NIA finally took up the case in 2010, it was expected that final word would be said in the case. In fact it was the same period when investigators probing the blasts had discovered footprints of similar Hindutva terrorist group which had carried out the Malegaon terror attack (Sep 2008) (The Telegraph, June 27, 2010). In fact it was the same time when few activists of the RSS had been apprehended by the Rajasthan ATS and more leads about the same outfit’s involvement in the May 2007 Mecca mosque blast in Hyderabad had emerged. The similarity in the triggering mechanism for the Mecca mosque blast and the Feb 2007 Samjhauta Express blast was also found to be striking. The home ministry had deemed it necessary to closely monitor the probe against the real perpetrators which was the only way to unravel the “complex web”.

Perhaps all of us were rather naive at that time.

Here is the same NIA supposedly getting ready to push under the carpet all the hard work done by its own officers and going full steam ahead on some vague input of US intel agencies, forgetting the fact that one of the biggest terror attack in India (26/11) was handiwork of one of their own agents (David Headley) who also worked for LeT.
 

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