ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday repeated its desire for justice for the victims of the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings, which killed 68 passengers, including 44 Pakistanis.
The Indian Charge d’Affaires in Islamabad was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Pakistani officials expressed their displeasure with the Indian government’s indifference to the situation of Pakistani nationals’ families who have yet to receive justice.
The Indian envoy was also told that under the current leadership in India, Hindutva extremism and “saffron terror,” which were behind the barbaric attack 15 years ago, had increased.
He was requested to express Pakistan’s displeasure with the “shameless acquittal and exoneration of all those convicted in the terrorist assault, including Swami Aseeman and an RSS activist, who publically confessed to being the mastermind of the horrendous attack” to the Indian government.
The ministry claimed that “this was just another evidence of the brazen impunity and governmental protection that perpetrators of terrorism enjoy[ed] in the BJP-ruled India.”
The Charge d’Affaires was also ordered to inform the Indian government of Pakistan’s desire for a fair trial and the prosecution of the culprits and abettors of the terrorist assault on the Samjhauta Express.
The Foreign Office spokeswoman issued a statement urging India to stop using terrorism as a “tool of state policy” and to uphold its duties under the international legal framework controlling terrorism.
On February 18, 2007, in Panipat in Haryana, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in the Samjhauta train, which travelled between New Delhi and Lahore. The tragedy claimed the lives of 68 people, including 44 Pakistanis, 10 Indians, and 15 unidentified people. A total of 12 people were injured in the attack.
The attack was initially blamed on a Muslim group, but later in New Delhi, India’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) arrested Kamal Chauhan of the Hindu extremist organisation RSS. Chauhan, an explosives expert, was the one who exploded the device in the train.
