2007 Mecca Masjid blast: All accused acquitted

Hyderabad: All accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast, in which nine people were killed, were acquitted by a special court here on Monday.
A total 10 people were named as the accused in the case. But police had arrested only Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, Rajendra Chowdhary, Lokesh Sharma and Devendra Gupta.
In 2011, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case from the CBI.
RVS Mani, former under-secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs said: “I had expected this verdict. All the pieces of evidence were engineered otherwise there was no Hindu terror angle. People who perpetrated the attack were protected through misuse of agency, this is what is alarming. How do you compensate those who suffered and were maligned? Will Congress, anyone else who propagated this story compensate them?”
But reacting sharply against the court verdict, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said, “justice has not been done. The NIA didn’t even appeal against the bail that was given to accused within 90 days… this was a completely biased investigation which will weaken our resolve to fight terrorism.”