Ajmer dargah blast accused Bhavesh Patel, who sparked
off a controversy earlier this week by accusing Congress leaders,
including Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, of pressuring him to name
RSS functionaries in the case, appeared in a special National
Investigation Agency (NIA) court here on Thursday and reiterated his
allegations, even as Mr. Shinde called his allegations “baseless”.
Patel said he was forced to state that he had engineered the blast on the instructions of RSS leaders.
Patel had earlier sent a handwritten letter to the court alleging that
he was made to meet Mr. Shinde, the Home Minister’s deputy R.P.N. Singh,
Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal and Congress general secretary
Digvijay Singh who put pressure on him to implicate RSS chief Mohan
Bhagwat and another top functionary Indresh Kumar in the case.
Patel
is accused of having provided logistics support to those who carried
out an explosion inside the famous 13th century shrine during Ramzan on
October 11, 2007.
The NIA court took Bhavesh’s letter on record and asked the premier investigating agency to file its reply to his allegations.
Mr.
Shinde and Mr. R.P.N. Singh have denied having ever met the accused.
Mr. Shinde said in New Delhi on Wednesday that he did not know any
Bhavesh Patel. “If someone takes my name, what can I do?” he said.
The
court posted the case for further hearing on October 3 and gave
directions to the NIA and jail authorities to lodge Patel in the Jaipur
Central Jail till then. Patel was earlier shifted to the Alwar jail,
after which went on a hunger strike and had to be admitted to Sawai Man
Singh Hospital here, from where he sent the five-page letter to the
court.
Bhavesh’s counsel B. S. Chauhan said he was
produced in the court on the direction of the judge, who had earlier
read his letter – submitted in a sealed cover – and found it necessary
to summon him in order to confirm that he understood the contents and
had indeed made the “serious allegations”.
The court
has framed charges against seven accused, including Swami Aseemanand who
is considered a key figure in the Hindutva terror network, while
holding them responsible for the deaths of three persons and injuries
caused to 17 others in the blast.
The charges against Patel and two others are yet to be framed.
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