Inconclusive investigations into the February 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing have now been handed over to the National Investigation Agency following a request from the Haryana police which failed to make any breakthrough over the past three years.
68 Pakistani and Indian Muslims were killed on the midnight of February 18, when multiple suitcase bombs simultaneously exploded in two overcrowded coaches of the twice-weekly Delhi-Lahore train. Investigations by a Haryana police Special Investigation Team ran into a dead-end after early suggestions on the possible involvement of a Madhya Pradesh-based Hindu terror group.
But in a belated effort to expose the conspirators the MHA’s special secretary (internal security), Mr Uttam Kumar Bansal told reporters in Delhi, “the Samjhauta blast case has been handed over to the NIA.”
Officers of the Haryana police SIT said there are unmistakable similarities between the Samjhauta bombing, the Malegaon blasts, the explosions in Ajmer and Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid blast evidently indicating the involvement of a considerably widespread network of “non-Islamic” terrorists.
Initial investigations had led to the Madhya Pradesh town of Indore, where the perpetrators are now known to have procured most of the material used to improvise the deadly suitcase bombs.
On the morning after the blast, which killed many Pakistanis returning home to Lahore, forensic experts were successful in diffusing one of the three suitcase bombs used in the attack. Inquiries revealed the suitcase had been purchased in Indore and that a local tailor had stitched its cover. But the tailor proved to be a dead end because he recalled very sketchy details about the person who ordered the covers. In fact, the man could not even hazard a guess on whether the buyer was Hindu or Muslim. The interrogation of the Malegaon blasts accused Lt. Col. S.P. Purohit and the Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur too offered the SIT no headway or fresh lead.
Though belated, the wisdom of requisitioning a dedicated agency with a nationwide reach finally appears to have dawned.
Haryana’s inspector general railways Mr. K K Mishra said, “The NIA has been probing several blast cases – some of which are interconnected.”