Pakistan has summoned India's Deputy High Commissioner to express its concern over the acquittal of right-wing activist Swami Aseemanand – an accused in the Samjhauta train blasts case – in the Ajmer Dargah blast case.
In a late-night statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh was called in by the Director General (South Asia & SAARC) on Friday "to express concern over the acquittal of Swami Aseemanand in the Ajmer Sharif blast case".
A total of 68 people were killed in the blasts in two coaches of the Samjhauta Express in Panipat on February 18 2007.
The Foreign Office statement said that 42 Pakistani citizens had lost their lives in the Samjhauta train blasts.
On Thursday, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria had asked India to bring the perpetrators of the Samjhauta train blasts to justice and termed the acquittal of Aseemanand in the 2007 Ajmer blast case as "regrettable".
"We have been pursuing the Samjhauta Express case with the Indian government and we hope that they will share the findings/investigations collected so far in the case with us and the perpetrators will be brought to justice," he had said.
A member of right-wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat, Aseemanand has been in jail since December 2010. He was also named as an accused in the Hyderabad Mecca Masjid blast case.
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