Panchkula:
The right-wing extremist known as Swami Aseemanand has been charged today with the terror attack on the Samjhauta Express that killed 68 people in 2007. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also charged four other people for assisting Assemanand; two of them, however, are yet to be located. The agency said it is studying the role of Hindu activist Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and may arrest her in the next few weeks. (Read: NIA's chargesheet on Samjhauta blast case)
On February 18, 2007, a series of bombs exploded on the Samjahuta Express near Panipat when the bi-weekly train was heading from Delhi to Lahore in Pakistan. Most of the 68 people who died were Pakistanis.
The NIA says that in its four years of inquiry, it has found that "the entire conspiracy was hatched between 2005 and 2007 by the accused Swami Aseemanand, Sunil Joshi (now dead) and his associates...at different places in Gujarat, M.P. and other places."
According to the NIA, Aseemanand wanted revenge for a series of terrorist attacks at temples like Akshardham in Gujarat and the Raghunath Mandir in Jammu. "Aseemanand propounded a 'bomb ka badla bomb' theory", the NIA claims, stressing that Assemanand provided financial and logistical support "to the terror group which executed this dastardly act" while also instigating his associates to plant the bombs on the train.
Aseemanand was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on November 19, 2010 for his alleged involvement in the Ajmer, Hyderabad and Samjhauta Express blasts, all of which took place in 2007.
Aseemanand told a Delhi court in December that his right-hand man was Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in Dewas in Madhya Pradesh in December 2007.
Aseemanand's confession that he was also involved in the bomb blasts at Malegaon in Maharashtra in 2006 and 2008, both of which targeted Muslims, linked him closely to Hindu terror group Abhinav Bharat which counts Sadhvi Pragya as one of its founder members.
A post-graduate in Botany, Aseemanand, whose real name is Jatin Chatterjee, belongs to the Hooghly district of West Bengal. He settled in the tribal-dominated Dangs area of south Gujarat in late 1990s.
On February 18, 2007, a series of bombs exploded on the Samjahuta Express near Panipat when the bi-weekly train was heading from Delhi to Lahore in Pakistan. Most of the 68 people who died were Pakistanis.
The NIA says that in its four years of inquiry, it has found that "the entire conspiracy was hatched between 2005 and 2007 by the accused Swami Aseemanand, Sunil Joshi (now dead) and his associates...at different places in Gujarat, M.P. and other places."
According to the NIA, Aseemanand wanted revenge for a series of terrorist attacks at temples like Akshardham in Gujarat and the Raghunath Mandir in Jammu. "Aseemanand propounded a 'bomb ka badla bomb' theory", the NIA claims, stressing that Assemanand provided financial and logistical support "to the terror group which executed this dastardly act" while also instigating his associates to plant the bombs on the train.
Aseemanand was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on November 19, 2010 for his alleged involvement in the Ajmer, Hyderabad and Samjhauta Express blasts, all of which took place in 2007.
Aseemanand told a Delhi court in December that his right-hand man was Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in Dewas in Madhya Pradesh in December 2007.
Aseemanand's confession that he was also involved in the bomb blasts at Malegaon in Maharashtra in 2006 and 2008, both of which targeted Muslims, linked him closely to Hindu terror group Abhinav Bharat which counts Sadhvi Pragya as one of its founder members.
A post-graduate in Botany, Aseemanand, whose real name is Jatin Chatterjee, belongs to the Hooghly district of West Bengal. He settled in the tribal-dominated Dangs area of south Gujarat in late 1990s.
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