Court rejects Daimary discharge plea

Guwahati, Aug. 17 : A local court today rejected the discharge petitions filed by NDFB chairman Ranjan Daimary and two other accused in the October 30, 2008 serial blasts. Besides Daimary, additional district and sessions judge, Kamrup, Ikramul Hussain, rejected the petitions of NDFB cadres Mridul Goyari and Nilim Daimary. The judge directed all the 14 arrested in the case so far, including the trio, to appear before the court on August 29 when charges would be framed against them. The date for framing charges, scheduled for today, was deferred, as Goyari couldn’t appear in the court because of illness. Nearly 100 persons had died in the nine blasts spread across Guwahati, Barpeta Road, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon on October 30, 2008 while 540 were seriously injured. The CBI had chargesheeted 22 persons in the case but only 14 of them have been arrested. The others are absconding. All the arrested, except Ranjan Daimary who is in Nagaon Central Jail, are lodged in Central Jail, Guwahati. The charges will be framed against the accused under Sections 121, 120 (B) of the IPC, Sections 10, 13, 20 and 27 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Sections 25 and 27 (A) of Explosives Substances Act, among others. The CBI had filed the chargesheet in the case on May 25, 2009. The 35-page chargesheet had named 828 witnesses and listed 762 documents, including post-mortem reports, confessional statements of those apprehended and details of calls made by some of the accused. Though confessions made by some of those arrested indicted Ranjan Daimary as the kingpin of the entire plot, his lawyer Manas Sarania submitted before the court that the NDFB chairman had no knowledge of the plot as he was in Bangladesh when the blasts took place. On his group’s declaration of an indefinite unilateral ceasefire with effect from August 1, Ranjan Daimary told reporters while coming out of the court, “Right now I can only say that the ceasefire is on the right track. Hopefully, it will move in the right direction.” He claimed that they did not have any difference with the NDFB (Progressive). “We are ready to talk with anybody and any organisation in order to realise our goals,” he said before being whisked away by security personnel from the court.