1 year on, no headway in Samjhauta blasts probe

NO SAMJHAUTA: A year after the Samjhauta Express blasts, 29 bodies have still not been identified.

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Panipat: It has been a year since the Samjhauta Express blasts, but investigations have hardly moved since that time.

After detaining suspects initially, the police do not seem to have made any progress.

As one of the detainees, Matloob Ahmed Saifi, says,” The police picked me up, tortured me for information, but nothing came their way and then they let me off. They have done nothing after that to probe the blast.”

Matloob was picked up for questioning three months after the blasts. His statement may be true, for the graveyard at Mehrana in Panipat, Haryana, still has 29 unidentified bodies.

The two charred compartments through which bombs had ripped apart still stand at Deewana near Panipat.

A witness Babulal Meena, who had waved the green flag to the train, had first noticed a suitcase with a crude explosive device in it and had warned the police, but to no avail.

“I told them, but they told me to mind my own business,” he said.

Railway Police SP Bharti Arora had the answer ready: “We did manage to get a few leads such as where the bombs were made, but ran into difficulties later on, as it is a complicated case with many people and states involved.”

69 people were killed on that fateful night on February 18 last year when bombs ripped through two compartments of the Lahore-bound train near Panipat.

Now, it is a year to the day that the Samjhauta blasts took place and the police and the administration have just a series of shortcomings to offer.

Neither have they been able to unravel the mystery behind the blasts, nor have they been able to identify 29 of those who died.

With inputs from Kamal Midha in Panipat