Pakistan on Wednesday summoned India’s high commissioner in Islamabad to register its protest over the acquittal of all the four accused in the Samjhautha Express terror attack.
According to a statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign office, Islamabad pointed out to Ajay Bisaria that it had consistently raised the lack of progress and the “subsequent concerted attempts by India to exonerate the perpetrators” of the 2007 attack that left 44 Pakistanis dead.
Islamabad further said the acquittal of the accused 11 years after the attack makes a “travesty of justice and exposes the sham credibility of the Indian courts” and “belies the rampant Indian duplicity and hypocrisy where India reflexively levels allegations of terrorism against Pakistan while protecting with impunity terrorists who had publicly confessed to their odious crimes”.
A special National Investigation Agency court in Haryana had earlier in the day acquitted Swami Aseemanand and three others of the blast on the Samjhauta Express that runs between New Delhi and Lahore. The ruling came weeks after a sharp escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan over the Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF troopers.
Pakistan is sure to use the acquittals in the Samjhautha case to counter India’s accusation of inaction by Islamabad against terrorists, including the JuD’s Hafiz Saeed and the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar. Pakistan has always pleaded helplessness over Hafiz walking free, citing it as a decision of the courts and part of an ongoing legal process.
Sources here rejected Pakistan’s assertions, saying Indian courts had followed the due process of law. The sources said Bisaria called out the lack of cooperation by the Pakistan government, including in serving court summons to Pakistani witnesses in the case. These summonses were returned by Pakistan’s foreign office and not served, the sources claimed.
Bisaria is also said to have asked for a speedy trial in the Mumbai terror attack case and shared India’s concerns over the lack of progress in investigations into the Pathankot airbase attack.
