New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency
(NIA) is likely to question right wing Hindu group Abhinav
Bharat member Swami Asimanand for his alleged involvement in
2007 Samjhauta Express blast case.
He was arrested by CBI on November 19 for his alleged
involvement in the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad that
left nine people dead.
The Samjhauta train blast left 68 people dead.
Sources said the Swami would be questioned about his
association with other people arrested in the case and his
whereabouts before the train blast took place.
The Swami, considered an ideologue of Abhinav Bharat,
an organisation linked to Malegaon blast in Maharashtra in
2008, was arrested from Haridwar by CBI earlier.
According to CBI, his name had cropped up along with
that of other accused Sandeep Darge and Ram Chadra Kalsangra
alias Ramjee.
Asimanand was living under a fake identity in Haridwar
and had also procured fake identity cards. CBI recovered a
passport issued by RPO, Kolkotta, a ration card and Election
Card from his possession.
While his name had surfaced during the investigation
into Mecca and Ajmer blasts, the investigating agencies did
not know much about his appearance, sources said.
They said the trail of the Swami began from 2009
onwards when security agencies got information about the way
he used to change his look.
CBI and ATS (Maharashtra) had carried out searches at
various places in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in 2009-10 after
receiving information about his presence. However, he had
managed to evade arrest then, the sources said.
A post-graduate in Botany, Asimanand, whose real name is
Jatin Chatterjee, is a resident of Hooghly in West Bengal and
came to the tribal-dominated area of Dangs in south Gujaratin
late 1990s.
His name had also come up during the probe in Malegaon
blast of 2008 when ATS Maharashtra recovered the number of
the Swami`s driver from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, another
Abhinav Bharat member and an accused arrested in Malegaon
case.
PTI
