Mecca Masjid Bomb Blast Verdict: All accused acquitted

Eleven years after the Mecca Masjid bomb blast shook Hyderabad, a National Investigation Agency court in Nampally on Monday acquitted all the ten accused including Aseemanand, citing lack of evidence.

Ten members of Abhinav Bharat, including Nabakumar Sirkar alias Swami Aseemanand; Devender Gupta; Lokesh Sharma alias Ajay Tiwari, Lakshman Das Maharaj, Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajender Chowdhary were named as accused in the case. Two others - Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange are still learned to be absconding while a key accused and RSS functionary, Sunil Joshi, was shot during the investigation of the case.

The court stated that no concrete evidence was found against any of the ten accused named by the NIA in its charge sheet.

The blast which took place in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007, during Friday prayers killed nine people and injured 58 others.

Heavy deployment of security personnel was witnessed at the Nampally Court with all the roads leading to it being blocked to prevent any untoward incidents in reaction to the verdict.

According to the reports, the NIA listed 226 prosecution witnesses during the trial, of which 64 turned hostile.