Asaduddin Owaisi will be meeting Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan on Thursday over the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast verdict which was announced on 16 April.
Owaisi, a Member of the Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Hyderabad, has been objecting to the investigation conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the case which led to the acquittal of all the accused including Swamy Aseemanand.
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The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president addressed a gathering in Saidabad on Wednesday during which he reiterated his criticism of the NIA’s handling of the case.
He said that he will demand a retrial in the case or an appeal against the case by Centre during his meeting with the Governor at 4 pm today.
On Thursday, Owaisi called the NIA a “deaf and dumb caged parrot” – a follow-up to his accusation that “Political Masters” didn’t “allow” the elite probe agency to probe the case properly.
Owaisi had on the day of the judgment accused the NIA of not pursuing the case “as expected from it”.
He also questioned the appointment of “an inexperienced lawyer” by the prosecution.
“The lawyer was inexperienced. He should have had 10 years of experience in dealing with serious cases,” he reportedly said.
Owaisi said that had the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government been serious, the accused would have been prosecuted.
“We have nothing against the Courts. But had the BJP been honest, the accused would have been punished. The NIA at the behest of the BJP deliberately went soft on the case to ensure that they would be acquitted,” he said while “warning” the Centre of the “threat” posed to the nation by those acquitted.
On 16 April, Owaisi had posted three tweets criticising the NIA probe following the verdict.
Read More: Asaduddin Owaisi says justice has not been done
“NIA is a deaf & blind TOTA they didn’t appeal against bail given to accused ,witness turned hostile after June 2014 IO couldn’t give proper statement so everything was done to fail the victims upshot is our fight against terrorism is weakened after Today’s acquittals,” read one of the tweets.
A special NIA court in Hyderabad on Monday acquitted all the accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case in which nine people were killed.
Read More: Mecca Masjid blast case: Swamy Aseemanand, four others acquitted
The court cited lack of evidence while pronouncing the acquittal of the accused. Ten people allegedly belonging to right-wing organisations were named as accused in the case.
However, only five of them — Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai and Rajendra Chowdhary — were arrested and faced trial in the case.
Two other accused — Sandeep V Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra — are absconding while another accused Sunil Joshi died. Investigations were continuing against two other accused.
