Samjhauta Express blast: Aseemanand remanded to one-day custody by Panchkula court

A court in Panchkula in Haryana today remanded right-wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat member Swami Aseemanand, allegedly involved in 2007 Samjhauta Express train blast case, to a day's custody of National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The NIA brought Aseemanand, also accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad, from Hyderabad and produced him in the Panchkula court.

Samjhauta train blasts in Haryana's Panipat district left 68 people dead in February 2007.

The NIA had recently sought the production warrant of Aseemanand from a court in Panchkula, near Chandigarh, to question his role in the Samjhauta train blasts.

He is likely to be questioned about his association with other people arrested in the Samjhauta blast case and his whereabouts before the train blast took place.

Panchkula's district and sessions judge PL Ahuja sent Assemanand to one-day remand as additional sessions judge, Ritu Garg whose court has been designated to deal with the Samjhauta blast case, was on leave today.

Aseemanand was arrested by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on November 19 for his alleged involvement in Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad that left nine people dead.

Aseemanand was earlier living under a fake identity in Haridwar and had also procured fake identity cards.

A post-graduate in Botany, Aseemanand, whose real name is Jatin Chatterjee, is a resident of Hooghly in West Bengal and came to the tribal-dominated Dangs in south Gujarat in late 1990s.

His name had also come up during the probe in Malegaon blast of 2008 when ATS, Maharashtra, recovered the number of the Swami's driver from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, another Abhinav Bharat member and an accused arrested in Malegaon case.