Swami Aseemanand gets bail

Swami Aseemananda, prime accused in the Samjhauta Express blast case, was granted conditional bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Swami is a Bengali sadhu working in Gujarat’s Dang area, was arrested six years ago in connection with the Samjhauta blast.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has decided not to oppose the conditional bail granted to Swami Assemanand, chargesheeted in the 2007 Samjhauta blast case, as it did not find any grounds for it. The Government has also declined to grant permission to challenge a bail order granted to two other accused in Mecca Masjid blasts case--Devender Gupta and Lokesh Sharma-- on the grounds  of parity since bail had been granted to Bharat Mohal Lal and Tejaram Parmar which had not been challenged by the prosecution.

However, Aseemananda continues to be jail as they were accused in other cases wherein they have been denied bail. On Swami Aseemanand, whose actual name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, continues to remain in jail as he could not comply with the conditions of bail specified in the order of Punjab and Haryana High Court last August. The certified copy of the said order was issued by the court only on May 1, 2015.

Four Improvised Explosive Devices were planted on Samjhauta Express, the only rail link between India and Pakistan, on February 18, 2007, in which 68 lives were lost. NIA has come under sharp criticism from political parties including Congress and has been accused of failure to carry on investigations in all terror cases in which right-wing groups have been associated. Special Public Prosecutor in Malegaon 2008 case Rohini Salian was said to have been eased out of the job after her claims that NIA was pressurising her to go soft on accused which included Sadhvi Pragya and Col Srikant Purohit. However, the NIA has denied her charge.