Pakistan summons Indian envoy to protest acquittal of Samjhauta blast case suspects
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A Indian passenger (L) waves on the Samjhauta Express, also called the Friendship Express that runs between New Delhi and Attari in India and Lahore in Pakistan, as it departs Lahore railway station on March 4, 2019
"Islamabad: Pakistan on Wednesday summoned the Indian High Commissioner to lodge a strong protest against the acquittal of all four accused, including Swami Aseemanand in the 2007 Samjhauta terror attacks that left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead.
A special court in Panchkula in Haryana acquitted Aseemanand and three others in the case.
The verdict came after NIA special judge Jagdeep Singh dismissed the plea filed by a Pakistani woman for examining eyewitnesses from her country, saying it was "devoid of any merit".
Pakistan's Acting Foreign Secretary summoned Indian High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria today to lodge Pakistan's strong protest, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
The Acting Foreign Secretary stressed that Pakistan had consistently raised the "lack of progress and the subsequent, concerted attempts by India to exonerate the perpetrators of this heinous terrorist act in which 44 innocent Pakistanis lost their lives". The issue was raised repeatedly, including at the sidelines of the Senior Officials, Heart of Asia Meeting in 2016. Formal demarches were also lodged regularly with India on the lack of progress and acquittal of the accused in other cases, the statement said.
The blast in Samjhauta Express took place near Panipat in Haryana on February 18, 2007, when the train was on its way to Attari in Amritsar, the last railway station on the Indian side.