A court in Panchkula, Haryana on Thursday extended the judicial custody of Swami Aseemanand till June 7 after the National Investigation Agency assured the judge that a chargesheet will be filed against the Samjhauta blast case accused before the next date of hearing.
The hearing in the case took place through video-conferencing, with the accused lodged in a central jail in Ambala. The defence submitted that the NIA team, which sought permission from the court to interrogate Aseemanand for two days on Saturday and Sunday, did not turn up even though his advocate was present on the both the occasions.
The prosecution on Thursday assured the court that it would file the charge sheet in the case by June 7 or before it.
Accused Swami Aseemanand, whose bail plea was rejected by a sessions court on May 12, had already denied having made any statement to the NIA about his involvement in the Samjhauta blast case.
Aseemanand, through his counsel, had charged the NIA with pressurising and torturing him mentally and physically to extort a statement from him.
As many as 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, were killed in the Samjhauta Express blast, at Panipat's Diwana village.
Earlier on May 7, a CBI court at Jaipur had also rejected Swami Assemanand's bail application in the 2007 Ajmer dargah blast case.
Apart from the Ajmer dargah blast, which claimed three lives, Aseemanand is an accused in several other blast cases across the country, including those at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid and Malegaon in Maharashtra.
He was arrested by the CBI last year from Haridwar for his alleged role in the Mecca Masjid blast case.
