india

Updated: Mar 29, 2019 13:50 IST

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday attacked the Congress-led UPA government blaming it for the clean chit given to all the accused in the 2007 Samjhauta blast case. Jaitley said the trial in court happened on the basis of evidence collected during the UPA regime.

He said the previous regime floated the theory of Hindu terror to gain political mileage and caught the wrong persons while letting the real culprits remain at large.

Jaitley said, “The Congress floated the fake theory of Hindu terror to gain political mileage and tarnished the entire Hindu community. They should apologise to the community.”

“During the tenure of the UPA and the Congress, when there was no evidence, the theory of Hindu terror was floated for the first time in the history of the country to tarnish the Hindu community. Three-four similar cases were made but none of them could stand in the court,” Jaitley said at a press conference in New Delhi.

The Union minister made the comment in the backdrop of a National Investigation Agency court’s judgment acquitting all the four accused including Swami Aseemanand in the Samjhauta blast case. More than 60 people had died in the train bombing about 12 years ago. The accused were freed for the lack of evidence.

“I have to conclude this judgment with deep pain and anguish as a dastardly act of violence remained unpunished for want of credible and admissible evidence. There are gaping holes in the prosecution evidence and an act of terrorism has remained unsolved,” Jaitley read out from the court judgement.

Hitting out at the Congress-led government, Jaitley said, “The judgment makes it clear that it was a trial of no evidence…So many people died. Who will take responsibility of this? The responsibility lies with the UPA leadership.”

“You did not go towards the real culprits. To create a theory of Hindu terror, you caught the wrong people,” Jaitley said.

Earlier on March 20, a special court ordered acquittal of Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan and Rajinder Chaudhary in the Samjhauta case. The blast had ripped apart two coaches of the cross-border train in Haryana.

The Haryana police registered a case but the NIA took over the investigation three years later in July 2010. A chargesheet was filed in 2011 against eight people. Four people faced trial while three others could never be traced. Sunil Joshi, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was shot dead few months after the incident in Madhya Pradesh.