NIA Seeks US Help to Probe Lashkar Link to Samjhauta Blasts

NIA has asked US authorities to send further details of LeT financier Arif Qasmani’s role in the Feb 2007 blasts.

File photo of Samjhauta Express at Indo-Pak border. (Photo: IANS)

The Director-General of the National Investigation Agency, Sharad Kumar said that the body has requested the US for information on a key financier of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 2007 Samjhauta train blasts case, according to a report in The Hindu.

This declaration comes years after the NIA arrested leaders of extremist Hindu groups in connection with the case.

I had gone to pursue pending requests under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). The case of LeT financier Arif Qasmani was one of them, and we have asked them [US authorities] to send further details of Qasmani’s role in the Samjhauta blasts.

Sharad Kumar, Director-General, National Investigation Agency

Mr. Kumar’s statement comes as a part of a series of moves by the NIA to review cases of “Hindu terror” between 2006 and 2008. Sixty-eight people, mostly Pakistanis, were killed in the Samjhauta train blasts in February 2007, and the explosives were traced to Indore.