Haryana Court reserves order in Samjhauta Expess blast case for March 14

Panchkula: Haryana's Panchkula court on Monday reserved the order in the Samjhauta Express blast case for March 14.

Advocate S C Sharma said, "There are possibilities that this application will be dismissed and a date after 14th March's hearing will be given for the verdict."

"A Pakistani national Rahila Wakil filed an application in Panchkula court on Monday for the recording of statement of some of the witnesses. The court told the applicant that summons were issued to eye-witnesses six times but none of them appeared," he added,

On February 18, 2007, an explosion had occurred in Samjhauta Express in Panipat district of Haryana, claiming the lives of around 68 persons.

Out of the deceased, 33 were male, 19 were female, 10 were male children, and 6 were female children.

"Two unexploded bombs were also recovered from the site,” the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

“This terrorist act was committed by using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) along with the highly inflammable substances, which caused blasts and consequent fire in the compartments of the train no. 4001 UP Attari (Samjhauta) Express at Panipat, Haryana,” the chargesheet read.

“The Samjhauta Express (Attari) train blast case of 18.02.2007 was a "dreadful terrorist act" in which two powerful bomb blasts were carried out by a group of people in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy with an intent to kill people and further to threaten the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of India and to strike terror in the people of India and in a foreign country,” the chargesheet said.

The chargesheet alleged that all the accused were agitated and perturbed over the attacks on Hindu temple sites and towns by the Islamic terrorist groups.

In order to retaliate to such attacks, the accused persons conspired to target the Muslim population.

Accused Rajendra Chaudhary conspired, planned, executed the attack along with other suspects. They planted bombs in the Samjhauta Express train along with other co-accused persons on February 18.

The investigation clearly established that the blasts which took place in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif were carried out by the accused persons in pursuance to a criminal conspiracy.

The NIA filed the first charge sheet before a special CBI court in Panchkula in 2011 and named five major accused namely Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanad, Sunil Joshi alias Manoj Joshi alias Guruji, Ramchandra Kalsangra alias Ramji alias Vishnu Patel, Sandeep Dange alias Parmanand and Lokesh Sharma alias Kalu.

While in 2012, a supplementary chargesheet was filed against two people, namely Kamal Chauhan alias Badrinarayan alias Vijay, and Amit alias Ashok alias Prince.

In the following year, in another supplementary chargesheet, the premier investigators of terror crimes named another accused Rajendra Chaudhary alias Samunder alias Laxman Das Maharaj.