NIA court suspends Samjhauta blast case for Mar 18

Panchkula, Mar 14 An anti-terror court here attempting the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case Thursday deferred its hearing to March 18 because of a progressing strike by local lawyers.

Special Judge Jagdeep Singh conceded the conference on account of the strike, NIA counsel Rajan Malhotra said.

"We were not allowed to enter the court complex by the protesting advocates, said Malhotra, adding the matter was adjourned to March 18.

Nearby legal lawyers went on an uncertain strike on March 12 in protest against a legal judge's supposed bad conduct with an advocate.

Meanwhile, Mukesh Garg, counsel for charged Swami Aseemanand, tried to invalidate a Pakistani lady's case in her application to the court that the observers to the impact from her nation were not served summonses for deposition.

Pakistani witnesses were summoned at least six times but there was no response from them, he said.

Pakistani lady Rahila Wakeel, the daughter of a blast victiml, Muhammad Wakeel of Dhingrawali town in Hafizabad region of Pakistan had moved the court on Monday looking for examination of the shoot onlookers from her nation.

On March 11, the court had posted the issue for Thursday in the wake of taking the lady's supplication on record and issued notice to the National Investigation Agency to react to her request.

The blast in Samjhauta Express had occurred near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007, when the train was en route to Attari in Amritsar, the last railway station on the Indian side.

The blast had tore separated two mentors of Samjhauta Express, executing 68 people, generally Pakistani nationals.

Haryana police had enrolled a case, however the probe was given over to the National Investigation Agency in July 2010.

After its test, the NIA recorded chargesheet for the situation in June 2011, arraigning eight people for their supposed jobs in the terror attack.

Of the eight people, Naba Kumar Sarkar false name Swami Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary showed up under the watchful eye of the court and faced trial.

Blast mastermind Sunil Joshi was killed in December 2007, while three other accused - Ramchandra Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange and Amit couldn't be caught and were declared proclaimed offenders.

Aseemanand is out on bail while three others are still in judicial custody.

The NIA had accused the blamed for homicide and criminal scheme, other than other applicable arrangements of the Explosive Substances Act and the Railways Act.

In its probe, the NIA had concluded that the accused were annoyed with the dread assaults on Hindu sanctuaries - Akshardham (Gujarat), Raghunath Mandir (Jammu) and Sankat Mochan Mandir (Varanasi).

They had conspired together to trigger the impact in the Pak-bound train, to a great extent conveying Pakistani nationals, to vindicate the spate of terror attacks in different temples of the nation.

The blamed had planned and propounded a hypothesis of 'bomb ka badla bomb', the NIA had said in its chargesheet.

As per the NIA probe, the accused were given training in Madhya Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana for making bombs and firing pistols.

The NIA chargesheet dubbed Sunil Joshi as the mastermind of the blast plot with active help from other accused, including Aseemanand.

The explosives were stuffed in suitcases, which were planted in the train by Lokesh, Rajinder, Kamal and Amit, said the NIA chargesheet.