Samjhauta blast case: Swami Aseemanand, 3 others acquitted

A special court here Wednesday acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others in the Samjhauta Express blast case which had left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead in 2007.

All the four accused, Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary have been acquitted by the court, NIA counsel Rajan Malhotra said.

The blast in the India-Pakistan train took place near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007, when it was on its way to Attari in Amritsar, the last station on the Indian side.

Aseemanand, who was already out on bail, and three others, who were in judicial custody were present in the court when NIA special judge Jagdeep Singh pronounced the verdict.

Before giving the verdict, the judge dismissed the plea filed by a Pakistani woman for examining some eyewitnesses from her country.

The court ruled that the plea of the Pakistani woman was devoid of any merit, Malhotra said.

As soon as we get a copy of the judgement, we will examine it and decide on the next course of action, he added