2007 Ajmer blast: Aseemanand and others acquitted, 3 convicted, by NIA court

NEW DELHI:

Aseemanand

and six other people accused in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast were acquitted, while three others were convicted, by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur today.

Aseemanand - who goes by the name

Swami Aseemanand

- was accused of masterminding the blast. Those convicted today are Sunil Joshi (who has since died), Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Patel. A total of 13 people were accused in the case. Three are still on the run.

On October 11, 2007, at about 6.14 pm during Roza Iftaar, a powerful bomb went off in the compound of dargah Sharif, Ajmer, which killed three persons and wounded 15.

According to the chargesheet, a section of radicalised Hindus associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh conducted the blasts at Ajmer dargah and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in retaliation for the 2002 attack on the Amarnath Yatra and the Raghunath temple in Jammu, allegedly by Muslim terror outfits.

The blast was caused allegedly to stir communal disharmony, insult the religious feelings and incite riots during the month of Ramzan.

The Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) filed a chargesheet against three accused persons on October 20, 2010 before the chief judicial magistrate court in Ajmer. But, later, the NIA took over the investigation from Rajasthan ATS on April 1, 2011.

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