The special court that last week acquitted all the four accused in the Samjhauta Express bomb blast case has reprimanded the National Investigation Agency (NIA) glaring discrepancy in its methodology of investigation.The detailed judgement, which was made available on Thursday, blamed a “tainted investigation, procured evidence, gaping holes in the case of prosecution, retraction of multiple witnesses, (and) failure of prosecution to produce admissible/credible evidence” for the acquittal of all the accused for bomb blasts in the Delhi-Attari-Lahore Samjhauta Express near Panipat in 2007, killing at least 68 passengers most of whom hailed from Pakistan From not conducting test identification parade (TIP) of accused who allegedly procured suitcase used to carry the explosives and not collecting evidence despite disclosures of accused, to not keeping samples of evidence gathered intact, the NIA Special Court has cited several major defects in the probe carried out by the agency.The prosecution even failed to bring any “oral or documentary evidence” to prove the motive of the accused to carry out the blast, Additional Sessions Judge Jagdeep Singh said in the verdict.He refused to place credence in the confessional statement of Swami Aseemanand before a judicial magistrate, finding it to be recorded under duress. Aseemanand’s “retracted confession reveals that the confession is long but rambling one, which could have been pieced together only after some sort of tutoring”, the judge held.He admonished NIA for not gathering “valuable pieces of evidence”. “Neither any call detail records (CDRs) of any mobile phone nor any other evidence pertaining to ownership and possession of any mobile phone by the accused/suspects has been brought on record,” he said in his order.The judge recorded “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.”The court also recorded its reservations over witnesses “with shady past” produced by prosecution and independent witnesses denting the case of prosecution by retracting from their previous statements.It underlined the urgent need for a witness protection scheme in the wake of witnesses turning hostile. Out of 224 witnesses who disposed before the court in this case, 51 turned hostile and changed their statements.One of the discrepancies in probe methodology cited by the court was that while all places allegedly involved in commission of the offence, according to Aseemanand, were in Gujarat, Aseemanand was taken to Daman for reasons best known to the agency. “This is again a circumstance which creates some suspicion about the methodology of investigation adopted by the investigating agency,” the judgement said.“It is generally noticed that a malaise has set in the investigating agencies which coin various terms like Muslim terrorism, Hindu fundamentalism, etc., or brand an act of criminal(s) as act(s) of particular religion, caste or community,” Justice Singh observed in his verdict. “A criminal element, belonging to a particular religion, community or caste, cannot be projected as representative of such particular religion, community or caste, and branding the entire community, caste or religion in the name of such criminal element(s) would be totally unjustified and it would be in the best interests of human kind to nip such tendencies in the bud lest we should be heading towards intense civil war or caught in a whirlpool of fratricide,” the verdict said.“A court of law is not supposed to proceed on popular or predominant public perception or the political discourse of the day. Admittedly present case is based on circumstantial evidence and it is settled law that all circumstance must form a complete chain in order to rule out innocence of the accused persons or culpability of persons other than the accused.”The NIA court has recorded its appreciation for ASI Kashmiri Singh who sacrificed his life in a bid to save the lives of passengers of the train.