Little if anything remains of the five coaches of the Samjhauta Express in which 68 people died in twin blasts in February 2007. An NIA team that recently went to inspect the coaches at Jagadhri,near Yamuna Nagar in Haryana,was told that two of the coaches had been sold as scrap,while three had been renovated,more than a year back. This could prove a serious setback to the probe that seemed to be making some headway following Swami Aseemanands confession of a Hindu terror link in the blast. The discovery also comes days ahead of the meeting between Home Secretaries of India and Pakistan in New Delhi,where Islamabad will raise the issue. The National Investigation Agency officials had contacted the Railways as they wanted to inspect the case property for samples and hoped to make a forensic breakthrough. According to sources,the five damaged bogies had been sent to Delhi after the blasts at Diwana near Panipat. While the explosions took place in coaches number GS/NR/03431 and GS/NR/14857,the fire had spread to three adjacent bogies. Later,all the bogies were shifted to the Jagadhri workshop. An NIA team that visited the workshop recently was told by its Chief Manager,Binod Kumar Paswan,that on getting clearance from Superintendent of Police of Railways,Ambala,the three coaches that had caught fire after the explosions,SLR/NR/04703,WGSCZ/NR/19054 and WGSCZ/NR/19113,had been renovated and sent to Delhi for being used in the rakes. The Railway authorities told us that the decision was taken after the Haryana Police told them that they do not require these for further investigation, said an NIA official. Confirming that none of the affected coaches remained,NIA Additional Director General Prakash Mishra told The Sunday Express: When our team contacted the Railways,they said that the coaches were badly damaged and so a decision was taken to sell them as scrap or renovate them. The other two coaches,where the blasts took place and which were irretrievable,were declared condemned on July 2009. These were sent for auction at Jagadhri,and dismantled and sold as scrap. Gujral Steel India at Yamuna Nagar took its delivery in November 2009. The three renovated coaches have also been in use since 2009. While the NIA plans to contact Gujral Steel,it has little hope of recovering anything from the remains. The forensic evidence is especially crucial as the NIA tries to join the dots between the Samjhauta Express,Mecca Masjid,Ajmer and Malegaon blasts. Apart from the confession of Swami Aseemanand,we have no other evidence to link the Samjhauta blasts to other blasts,and forensic analysis is the only method, said a senior NIA official.
