Ajmer Dargah Blast verdict: Swami Aseemanand acquitted, 3 others convicted by NIA court

On October 11, 2007, a blast in the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at the time of Roza iftar killed three pilgrims and left 15 others injured.

Jaipur, Mar 08: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court in Jaipur in its verdict on Wednesday acquitted the main accused Swami Aseemanand in the Ajmer blast case. The court in its verdict convicted Sunil Joshi, Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Patel in the Ajmer blast case. Due to lack of evidence, Swami Aseemanand has been acquitted of all the charges by the court. On October 11, 2007, a blast in the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at the time of Roza iftar killed three pilgrims and left 15 others injured. Out of the three convicted in the case, Sunil Joshi was murdered in 2007.

Two FIRs were registered in 2007 against Swami Aseemanand in 2007 in the Ajmer Dargah blast case and the investigation was later transferred to NIA in 2011. The NIA filed a charge sheet in the case in the same tear and the agency had accused Swami Aseemanand of masterminding the blast. The charges against him included murder and spreading communal hatred. In the case, 149 verdicts were prosecuted and out of the 149 witnesses, 29 witnesses turned hostile in the case.

Caravan magazine in its report had earlier quoted Aseemanand stating that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, the then RSS general secretary had told Swami Aseemanand not to link the blast to the Sangh. “It is very important that it be done. But you should not link it to the Sangh,” the Caravan magazine quoted.

Apart from the Ajmer Dargah blast, Aseemanand is also accused in several other cases which include Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid in 2007 and the explosion in the Samjhauta Express in the same year which led to the killing of 70 passengers. Aseemanand was jailed in 2010 after he allegedly admitted his involvement in the terror attack on the train. However, he later made a u-turn stating that he was tortured to give a false statement.