View From The Neighbourhood: Off the hook

A weekly look at the public conversations shaping ideas beyond borders — in the Subcontinent. Curated by Asad Ali.

It is a rebuke to the more than 20 victims of the explosion with Indian nationality and it is a snub to the efforts of those investigators of Haryana, where the incident took place, who tracked the suspects in a high-pressure probe.” (Representational Image)

An editorial in Dawn takes a sharp, critical look at India’s special National Investigation Agency court which last week acquitted all the accused in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast. It minces no words as it says that, “The ruling is an insult to the 42 Pakistani victims of the February 18, 2007, bombing of the train that had set off for Lahore, and a sharp reminder of how opponents of Subcontinental peace are allowed to get away with the biggest crimes. It is a rebuke to the more than 20 victims of the explosion with Indian nationality and it is a snub to the efforts of those investigators of Haryana, where the incident took place, who tracked the suspects in a high-pressure probe.”
The editorial recognises the sincerity of purpose of the initial investigators assigned to the case and says, “That police team overcame all kinds of pressure to first reject the opinion that this was an act carried out by a Muslim extremist group, and then to actually announce it was a job carried out by organised Hindu extremists”, and, points out the “painful contrast” between them and the NIA’s efforts. It states that “true to form”, Delhi tried to find shelter behind the usual rhetorical exchanges of the two countries where “both sides have pointed a finger at the other for not seriously prosecuting groups blamed for terrorist acts inside each other’s territory”. It calls the Pakistan response “as predictable as it is sharp”, and points out that, “Islamabad’s response aptly underlines the fact that the terrorists had publicly confessed to their ‘odious crimes’”.