Panchkula: On Monday, in a big twist in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case, a Pakistani national filed an application before the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here stating that she wants to place 'additional evidence' on record. The court, which was expected to deliver the verdict in the case today, has now deferred the matter for further hearing on March 14. The Pakistani national, who claimed to have evidence with regard to the case, said she was the daughter of one of the victims of the train blast. She further said in her application that most eyewitnesses are in Pakistan and unaware of the proceedings in India. She claimed that she had not received any summons and that those Pakistani nationals who had received the summons were denied visas to come to India.

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It is to be noted that reacting to the development, NIA said it has not received any communication from Pakistan. The agency is unaware of people wanting to depose before the Indian court, it said. A total of 68 people were killed on February 18, 2007, when a blast rocked the Samjhauta Express train that runs between India and Pakistan. Most of the dead were Pakistani nationals.

However, the blast took place in the train at night when it was passing through Diwani village near Panipat in Haryana. The train was moving towards Attari, the last station on the Indian side. In the chargesheet filed in the case in June 2011, the NIA had stated that the blast targeted Pakistani Muslims. The NIA chargesheet had named Swami Aseemanand, a member of the right-wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat, Lokesh Sharma, Sunil Joshi, Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalasangra alias Ramji as among the accused in the blast case. Notably, the five were charged with murder and criminal conspiracy under the Explosive Substances Act and Railways Act among others. Aseemanand is currently out on bail. The blast had impacted two coaches of the train. Conspirators had used improvised explosive devises planted in suitcases in the explosion to cause maximum damage. Their aim was to trigger the blast in the moving train so that the resultant fire could cause maximum damage.

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It is worth mentioning here that the case was initially probed by a special investigation team. The SIT had arrested a Pakistani national Ajmat Ali among other suspects but later gave him a clean chit. It was later decided to probe the involvement of right-wing groups in the blast. There were over 290 witnesses listed during the trial in the case, out of which 13 Pakistani nationals failed to appear before the court. Some 30 also turned hostile.