Samjotha Express Train Credit: Najanaja/Wikipedia
India often blames Pakistan for militant attacks on its soil but this week it was Pakistan that called out India for duplicity after a court acquitted four alleged attackers, one of them self-confessed terror operative, involved in killing of 44 Pakistanis in a 2007 bombing of Samjhota Express train.
The bombing in 2007, confessed by RSS militant Swami Aseemananad in 2010, killed 68 people including 44 Pakistani traveling in the train that symbolized goodwill transportation between the two often tense South Asian neighbors.
A court in the northern Indian state of Haryana dismissed a petition filed by Rahila Wakeel, the daughter of a Pakistani victim who wanted to get her statement recorded as a witness.
“Prosecution has failed to prove the case so the court acquitted all of them,” lawyer Mukesh Garg told reporters.
The exoneration of the accused comes as both Pakistan and India are locked in a military standoff over disputed Kashmir region. New Delhi says Islamabad backs militants fighting for freedom and separation form India. Islamabad has rejected the charges. In the wake of Pulwama attack on Indian security forces, New Delhi readily blamed Pakistan for the attack and claimed that it carried out an aerial strike against a training camp of Jaish e Mohammad. Islamabad said it was an abortive incursion and later shot down two Indian war planes in Kashmir, which has been the cause of several conflicts between the two countries.
Swami Aseemanand, 3 others acquitted in 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing casehttps://t.co/VMGsG4QMQ7 pic.twitter.com/hZ8pbrV6ZE
— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) March 20, 2019
The main accused in the burning of train compartments, Swami Aseemanand, is a self-styled Hindu holy man and former member of the Hindu extremist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has produced many of the ruling BJP leaders. Asseemanand has long been known to have been behind several other anti-Muslim attacks including Ajmer Dargah and Mecca Masjid in India.
Aseemanand was jailed in 2010 after admitting to his involvement in the attack on the train near Panipat, a historical city known for being battlefield between Afghan invaders and Indian rulers, about 100 km north of the capital, New Delhi.
Three other accused — Ramchandra Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange and Amit — are still at large and have been declared proclaimed offenders.
After the court verdict, Pakistan summoned the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad to voice its strong protest and condemnation.
Pakistan has consistently raised the lack of progress and the subsequent, concerted attempts by India to exonerate the perpetrators of this heinous terrorist act, a Pakistani diplomat said.
“The acquittal of the accused today, 11 years after the heinous Samjhota 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,” Pakistan’s acting foreign secretary said.
