In Samjhauta and Malegaon probes, the NIA walks a tight rope

New Delhi, Apr 26: The National Investigation Agency finds itself in a tough position today. It is never easy to probe cases which have taken u-turns and more importantly mired in political controversy.

There has been a war of words that have broken out in almost all quarters about the Samjautha Express and Malegaon blasts case.

At first both these blasts were blamed on Muslim outfits and later on, the course changed with Hindus being termed as the accused in the case.

The same was witnessed in the Malegaon 2006 case as well and yesterday a court had discharged 8 Muslims accused of the offence.

A tight rope walk

Although the Ministry of Home Affairs has clearly stated that there is no pressure on the NIA where these cases are concerned, there is a raging public debate about the political conspiracy.

In the Samjautha Express blasts case, the case is already at a trial stage. It is entirely up to the courts to decide about the fate of the accused persons.

In the Malegaon 2008 case the Maharashtra ATS had filed two chargesheets against 14 persons. In this case, Sadhvi Pragya Singh and Lt Colonel Purohit were named as accused persons.

The NIA states that this case is still under investigation. "We are not trying to go soft on any of the accused. We are just trying to ascertain if all the facts are right," an NIA official says.

Even if the NIA is trying to ascertain if there are new facts in the case, the evidence it would have to place on record will need to extremely strong in nature.

The NIA cannot afford strictures from the court as it is India's premier investigating agency. The NIA deals with various foreign agencies and if it has observations made against it then the standing of the agency could go down.

What the NIA will need to do in these cases which have seen several twists and turns is make it clear before the court their stand.

No pressure

The Home Ministry has however said that there is absolutely no pressure on the NIA and it has a free hand to probe the case.

The ministry says that the only thing that needs to be put to rest is if there are any anomalies in the probe.

What set eye balls rolling was when the NIA team visited the US to probe the Lashkar-e-Tayiba link to the Samjautha blasts case.

The US had in fact claimed at the time of the attack that one of the financiers of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba had a role to play in it.

Now this was being visited 6 years after the NIA took over the probe into the case.

The NIA however said that it is not as though they woke up suddenly. We just wanted to get all facts in order so that the case is not weakened before the court.

OneIndia News