NIA Special Court Frames Charges Against 8 Under UAPA In 2019 Blast Case

Guwahati: A special court of National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Guwahati has framed charges against eight accused under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 for their involvement in the grenade blast that took place on May 2015, 2019 near the Assam State Zoo and Botanical Garden.

In the blast six people were critically injured.

The accused — Pappu Koch Bokoliyal alias Bijoy Asom alias Anvi, Rajguru, Chinmoy Lahkar, Indra Mohan Bora, Amrit Ballav Goswami, Sanjib Talukdar and Prakash Raj Konwar — were found to be involved in United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (Ulfa-I) activities.

The investigative agency took over the case on June 26, 2019 and filed a chargesheet in November in the same year. During investigation, the NIA collected additional evidence against the culprits, based on which it had filed the supplementary chargesheet against the banned militant outfit ULFA-I, its chief Paresh Baruah and a few others in September last year.

As per the investigation it was revealed that the plan to carry out blast on May 15, 2019 near the Assam Zoo in Guwahati was plotted at Jahanabee's rented house in the Panjabari region of the city, where Pappu, Pranamoy and Chinmoy were all present.

Pappu and Chinmoy had meeting with Jahanbee and Pranamoy in the Zoo road area and thereafter, they had carried out a dry run at the targeted place of occurrence prior to blast.

Pappu had allegedly thrown the grenade and was picked up by Janhnabee in a rented two-wheeler from Guwahati's Nursery area. The court also found the mobile phone locations of the accused supporting the investigation findings.

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