Makkah Masjid blast case: Judge who acquitted all accused keen to join BJP

HYDERABAD: Retired metropolitan sessions, who resigned within hours after the acquittals of all the accused belonging to Right-wing extremist groups in the Makkah Masjid bomb blast case wants to join the ruling BJP.

According to media reports, the former IVth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge K Ravinder Reddy met BJP president Amit Shah visited Hyderabad on September 14 and expressed his desire to work.

Defending the decision, he said: “BJP is a patriotic party, free of any dynastic culture and therefore expressed his keenness to join the BJP.

A decade after a bomb blast killed nine worshippers at the historic Makkah Masjid, Reddy had acquitted all five Hindu activists including Swamy Aseemanand in the case on April 16, 2018.

Within hours after pronouncing the verdict, Reddy tendered his resignation citing “personal reasons”, surprising legal and political circles.

There were a total of 10 accused in the case and five of them were charge sheeted by the NIA.

Right-wing Hindu activists Nabakumar Sarkar alias Swamy Aseemanand, Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai and Rajender Chowdhary, against whom the charges were framed, were all acquitted.

Swami Aseemanand, a resident of Gujarat and head of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, was earlier acquitted in the Ajmer Dargah blast case and is currently on bail in Samjhauta Express blast case of 2014. Devendra Gupta is the RSS Pracharak from Bihar while Lokesh Sharma is an RSS activist from Madhya Pradesh.