New Delhi

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed its closure report in the 2008 Modasa bombing case in Gujarat citing lack of evidence and inability to trace the main culprit.

It was during the month of Ramzan in 2008 when an explosive-laden motorcycle blasted in a busy market on September 29 at 9.25 PM killing a 15-year-old boy and injuring 10 others.

The agency was looking for the two main accused Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra, who were suspected to have orchestrated the Modasa, Malegaon and Samjhauta blasts.

Both of them have been on run since 2008 and NIA has also announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh on information about them.

There was a striking similarity between the Modasa blast and the Malegaon bombing, which took place a day before.

The explosive material was similar to Malegaon 2008 and the explosion took place in a Muslim colony named Sukka Bazaar, outside a mosque when special Ramzan prayers were being offered. In both the cases, the explosives were concealed inside a motorcycle.

NIA, which took over the case after two years of bureaucratic tussle between the UPA at the Centre and Narendra Modi government at the state, filed the closure in the special NIA court which accepted it.

In its closure report, the NIA informed the court that attempts were made at retrieving the complete chassis number of the engine of the motorcycle whose last three digits were not readable at all, official sources said.

NIA has also returned the Sunil Joshi murder case back to Madhya Pradesh after the agency claimed that no case under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was made. Joshi is a chargesheeted accused in the Samjhauta train blast case.

NIA, however, maintained that it would reopen the case if it is able to gather any evidence in future.

Inputs from PTI