NEW DELHI: A detained Samjhauta Express bomb suspect has confessed to plotting the 2005 firing on prominent Kashmiri rights activist S.A.R. Geelani who survived but lives with several bullets lodged in his body, reports said on Wednesday.

The Indian Express said Rajender Choudhary, currently in the custody of National Investigation Agency, had reportedly told investigators that he along with Ajmer dargah and Mecca Masjid bombings accused Lokesh Sharma had shot at Mr Geelani on February 8, 2005, in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar district, where Geelani had gone to meet his lawyer. The Delhi University teacher had suffered serious injuries and recently had one of the several bullets removed for lead poisoning.

Mr Choudhary is learnt to have also confessed that the attack was carried out on the instructions of slain RSS instructor Sunil Joshi. They reportedly started planning the attack in 2003, soon after the Delhi High Court acquitted Mr. Geelani in the Parliament attack case of 2001. Mr Geelani heads NGOs opposed to capital punishment and prisoners’ rights.