Mumbai: Nineteen years after multiple 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 they committed the crime”.
The judgement comes as a major embarrassment to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which conducted the probe into the case.
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 persons.
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, of whom five had been sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment by a special court.
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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.
Prosecution failed to prove case: HC
“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 bench refused to confirm the death penalty imposed on five of the convicts and the life imprisonment on the remaining seven by a special court in 2015, and acquitted them.
The HC said the accused shall be released from jail forthwith if not wanted in any other case.
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, it said.
The bench in its judgment 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.
The HC also discarded the alleged confessional statements of some of the accused in the case and said they seem to have been taken after torture was inflicted upon them.
“The confessional statements are found to be incomplete and not truthful as some parts are a copy-paste of each other. The accused persons have proved their case that torture was inflicted at the time,” the bench said.
The court also discarded the test identification parade of the accused, noting the police concerned who conducted it had no authority to do so.
The HC also refused to accept the evidence given by witnesses, that included taxi drivers who drove the accused to Churchgate railway station, those who saw the accused plant a bomb, those who were witness to bombs being assembled and those who were witness to the alleged conspiracy.
“The witness statements are not credible or trustworthy and conclusive to convict the accused. The evidence is not safe to rely on and the defence has succeeded in shattering the same,” it said.
The HC said witnesses identified the accused before the police during the identification parade four months after the incident and then in court four years later.
“These witnesses did not have enough opportunity to have seen the accused on the day of the incident to identify them correctly later. We do not find any such reasons to trigger their memory and recollect the faces,” it said.
Special court judgment
A special court in 2015 convicted 12 persons in the case, of whom five were sentenced to death and the remaining seven were given life imprisonment. One of the convicts died pending hearing of the appeal.
After the HC pronounced its judgment on Monday, the convicts, who were produced before the court via video conference from various jails across Maharashtra, thanked their lawyers.
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 awarded life imprisonment to 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 Latiur Rehman Shaikh.
One of the accused, Wahid Shaikh, was acquitted by the trial court in 2015.
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