Tunda acquitted in 1997 Panipat bus blast case

PANIPAT: A day after he was attacked in Karnal jail, Abdul Karim Tunda on Thursday was acquitted in the Panipat bomb blast case of 1997. He will, however, stay behind bars as he is facing several other similar cases.
On Thursday, Panipat additional sessions judge V P Sirohi acquitted Tunda on the grounds of lack of evidence in the case. A 10-year-old child named Madu was killed and 20 others were injured in the bomb blast near the bus depot in a private bus going to Luhari on February 1, 1997.
Tunda, a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terror outfit, was booked under conspiracy charges into the matter.He was produced in the court of on Thursday. The court has directed to send him in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
A resident of Pikhuwa in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district, Tunda was arrested by Delhi Police from India-Nepal border in 2013. The CBI had charged him with organizing LeT's major terror attacks outside Jammu and Kashmir. He is accused in 43 bomb blasts in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Rohtak and Jalandhar in which over 20 persons were killed and over 400 injured.
Tunda's lawyer Sultan Kharab said, "42 witnesses recorded their statements before the court in the case during trial. Prosecution failed to prove the allegation imposed upon him." He was attacked in Karnal jail by two inmates on Wednesday morning. The two inmates tried to strangulate Tunda but the security personnel saved him.