Startling revelations by Kamal Chouhan are helping Indian investigators understand how bombs used in blowing up Samjhota Express were brought to the capital, and the sequence of events leading to the tragedy that killed 68 passengers, most of them Pakistani nationals. Today marks the fifth anniversary of the attack.
Samjhota Express, a train service launched as a peace initiative between Pakistan and India, was blown up at Diwana station near the Indian city of Panipat, Haryana in the early hours of February 19, 2007.
Chouhan, arrested last Sunday and produced in court earlier this week, has reportedly said that he has no “regrets” over the Samjhota bombing. He is said to have told interrogators that there were four “planters” who came in two separate groups to Old Delhi Railway Station with four suitcases, each carrying a bomb.
Chouhan said that he was among 11 people who were given arms training at Bagli in early 2006 and also part of the “firing lessons” organised by Sunil Joshi (now dead) given to eight people in Faridabad in April 2006.
Chouhan said that in the group that received the initial arms training, there were Joshi, Ramji (Ramachandra Kalsangra (who is on the run), Sandeep Dange (absconding) and Lokesh Sharma (in jail).
Chouhan said that on February 15, 2007, three days before the bombing, he received a phone call from Sharma in Indore who told him that “the time for work has come”, and asked him to come to the Indore railway station to “accompany him on a journey”. Chouhan claims he did not ask for details but knew that “they were going to plant a bomb somewhere”. At the railway station, Chouhan told investigators that he met Lokesh who had two suitcases. “I pulled one and found it was heavier, heavier than a suitcase with clothes. He (Lokesh) had arranged the train reservation already. We had confirmed tickets,”‘ he said. Investigators are not sure what names were used.
Chouhan and Lokesh boarded Intercity Express to Hazrat Nizamuddin. Chouhan said Lokesh used a chain to lock the suitcases. He said they avoided all talk of their “mission” because there were people around. Both reached Nizamuddin the next morning from where they went to the Old Delhi Railway Station where they checked into a dormitory. They kept the suitcases in the room and went for a stroll, had lunch near Red Fort and it was then that they discussed the bombing plan, Chouhan told investigators.
That evening, Chouhan told investigators, they waited for Samjhota Express to pull in. “Lokesh took the briefcase that he was carrying and boarded the train and left it there. He had asked me to wait. Then he came back and took the briefcase that I was carrying and went to another compartment,” Chouhan reportedly said. “After this, we left the station immediately.”‘ Regarding the source of the bombs, Chouhan has told investigators that these were given to Lokesh by Ramji. Four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were planted in unreserved compartments of the Samjhota Express, of which the IEDs in the 12th and 13th compartments exploded.
