TN: RSS blast case verdict adjourned to June 21

Chennai, June 11: The verdict in the 1993 RSS office bomb blast, in which 11 people were killed, was today further adjourned to June 21.

When the case came up for hearing, the Designated Court, Judge T Ramaswamy said the order would be pronounced on June 21.

Earlier, the Judge had on April 18 fixed May 9 as the date for pronouncing the judgement. However, on May 9, he had further adjourned it to June 11, stating that the judgement was not ready.

In all, 18 people, including leader of the banned Al-Umma organisation S A Pasha, were the accused in the case. While seven accused were on bail, one Mushtaq Ahmed was absconding.

Two other prominent people listed as accused were Imam Ali, a suspected ISI agent who had escaped from custody in Madurai and was later gunned down in Bangalore in a police encounter on September 29, 2002, and Jihad Committee Founder-President Palani Baba, who was hacked to death by suspected RSS sympathisers on January 29, 1997.

The CBI had been entrusted with investigation of the case after it was found that RDX had been used to blast the RSS State headquarters building at Chetpet here on August 8, 1993.

Of the total 431 witnesses, 224 were examined during the course of the trial, which commenced on August 7, 1995. The chargesheet was filed on June 8, 1994.

UNI