Aseemanand granted bail in Mecca Masjid blast case

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Hyderabad: A city court on Thursday granted conditional bail to former RSS worker Swami Aseemanand in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case.

The Fourth Metropolitan Sessions court directed him to furnish two sureties of Rs 50,000 each and not to leave Hyderabad without prior permission.

Nine persons were killed in the blast during Friday prayers at the historic mosque on May 18, 2007. Five persons were killed in subsequent police firing near the mosque after protests broke out after the blast.

Jatin Chatterjee aka Swami Aseemanand was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2010.

Earlier associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, he is considered an ideologue of Abhinav Bharat, an extremist organisation involved in Malegaon and Ajmer blasts.

On March 8, a National Investigation Agency Special Court in Jaipur in Rajasthan held three persons guilty in the 2007 Ajmer blast case, but acquitted Aseemanand and six others. Two of the three convicts were handed life imprisonment. One convict has since died.

Three persons were killed and at least 15 others injured when a bomb exploded on October 11, 2007, inside the shrine of Sufi saint Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer.