Ajmer blast: Sentencing deferred till March 22

A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur on Saturday deferred the sentencing of Devendra Gupta and Bhavesh Bhai Patel, both convicted in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case till March 22.

Afterhearingtheargumentsof the defence, NIA court judge Dinesh Gupta reserved the verdict till March 22.

The court on March 8 had convicted three persons but let off former RSS member Aseemanand and six others in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case in which 26 witnesses turned hostile.

Three persons were killed and 15 injured in an explosion at the famous shrine of Sufi saint Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti in Rajasthan’s Ajmer on October 11, 2007.

NIA court judge Dinesh Gupta had found Rashtriya Swayamsweak Sangh members Sunil Joshi and Devendra Gupta guilty of planning the blasts – one of the two bombs didn’t go off — and Bhavesh Bhai Patel of planting the explosives. The court had acquitted Aseemanand, also an accused in the Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts, and others, giving them the “benefit of doubt”.

The three blasts, within months of each other, came to be known as acts of Hindu terror — a term that triggered a furious political debate — because of the arrests of the members of the right-wing outfit.

The National Investigation Agency took over the probe from the Rajasthan anti-terrorism squad. Initially, police blamed Islamic terror groups but later a confession by Aseemanand shifted the focus on Hindu groups.

A total of four charge sheets were filed in the case. There were as many as 149 witnesses in the case.