MUMBAI, July 21: Nineteen years after seven train blasts here killed more than 180 persons, the Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all the 12 accused, saying the prosecution “utterly failed” to prove the case and it was “hard to believe the accused committed the crime”.
The judgement comes as a major embarrassment to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which probed the case. The agency had claimed that the accused were members of the banned outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and had hatched the conspiracy with Pakistani members of terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
In a damning indictment of the prosecution’s case, the high court declared all confessional statements of the accused as inadmissible suggesting “copying”.
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Further eroding the credibility of the confessions, the court said the accused had successfully established that torture was inflicted upon them to extort these confessional statements.
A special bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak said the prosecution has failed to even bring on record the type of bombs used in the crime and that the evidence relied on by it was not conclusive to convict the accused.
“Punishing the actual perpetrator of a crime is a concrete and essential step toward curbing criminal activities, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring the safety and security of citizens,” HC said in its 671-page judgment.
But creating a false appearance of having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution, it added.
“This deceptive closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society, while in reality, the true threat remains at large. Essentially, this is what the case at hand conveys,” the bench said.
The death row convicts were Kamal Ansari (now dead), Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, Naveed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan.
The special court had found them guilty of planting bombs and several other charges.
It had imposed life imprisonment on Tanveer Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Mohammed Majid Mohammed Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Muzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed Rehman Shaikh.
The witness statements and alleged recoveries made from the accused have no evidentiary value, the HC said while quashing the conviction of the 12 persons. Five had been sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment by a special court. One of the death row convicts died in 2021.
Seven blasts ripped through Mumbai local trains at various locations on the western line on July 11, 2006, killing more than 180 persons and injuring several others.
“The prosecution has utterly failed to prove the case against the accused. It is hard to believe that the accused committed the crime. Hence their conviction is quashed and set aside,” the HC said.
The HC said the accused shall be released from jail forthwith if not wanted in any other case.
After pronouncing the verdict, the judges said they had done their duty as per the responsibility cast upon them. (PTI)
The prosecution’s evidence, witness statements and alleged recoveries made from the accused persons have no evidentiary value and hence cannot be held as conclusive for conviction, the HC said.
The bench also drew an adverse inference on the prosecution for failing to examine important witnesses in the case and also for poor and improper sealing and maintenance of the recovered items – explosives and circuit boxes allegedly used to assemble the bombs.
“The prosecution has failed to even bring on record the type of bombs used in the alleged crime. Hence, the evidence of recovery is not sufficient to prove the offence against the accused,” it said.
Discarding the confessional statements, HC said they seem to have been taken after torture was inflicted upon them and were “incomplete and not truthful”.
The high court also pulled up the investigating agency for not providing legal assistance to the accused persons before and while recording their confessional statement.
The bench said the confessional statements are vague on several aspects like planning of the conspiracy, in what containers the bombs were packed, how they were detonated, what device was used to trigger the bombs and so on.
“It is well known that, in most cases, police are in the habit of extorting confessions by illegal and improper means, including torture,” HC said.
The HC also held as “incredible and non-trustworthy” the evidence given by witnesses, including taxi drivers who drove the accused to the train station, those who saw the accused plant the bombs, those who were witness to bombs being assembled and those who were witness to the alleged conspiracy.
The court also noted that the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Syndicate (MCOCA) would not apply to this case and that sanction for the same was granted in a “mechanical manner without application of mind”.
Maharashtra revenue minister and senior BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule said the state government will assess the merits of the HC order, before deciding on whether to challenge it in the Supreme Court.
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi sought to know whether Maharashtra government would take action against ATS officers who investigated the train blasts case.(PIT)
