Swami Aseemanand, a key suspect in multiple bomb attacks, targeting the Muslim community at Ajmer, Hyderabad and Malegaon, on Thursday, denied a hand in the February 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing, which killed 68 passengers, the majority of whom were Pakistan nationals returning to Lahore after visiting relatives in India.
Aseemanand, who was produced in the court of the Panchkula district and sessions judge said he had made no “confessional” statement in the presence of National Investigating Agency officers, confirming his complicity in the India-Pakistan train blast in any manner.
He sought to document in the court during the hearing of a bail plea filed by his lawyer contending that the NIA had failed to file a charge sheet against him in the Samjhauta case within the legally stipulated 90-day period. The judge, however, rejected the plea and extended Aseemanand’s custody until May 26.
Later, while he declined from any direct interaction with reporters present outside the courtroom, his lawyer, Manveer Rathi said his client had in fact been subjected to third degree emotional and physical torture to force him to confess while in the NIA’s custody.
A front-ranking member of the ultranationalist Hindu outfit Abhinav Bharat, Swami Aseemanand was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on November 19 last year for his alleged involvement in the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad in which nine persons were killed. Prior to that, investigators say, he was living under an assumed identity in Haridwar city.
The NIA brought him to Panchkula on a production warrant from the Hyderabad jail on December 23.
Originally from West Bengal’s Hooghly district, the Swami’s real name is Jatin Chatterjee.