Hyderabad: Hyderabad MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president on Monday, July 21 expressed concern after 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts were acquitted.
Owaisi said that the accused have lost the prime of their lives as they were incarcerated for 19 years.
“In such cases where there is a public outcry, the approach by police is always to first assume guilt and then go from there,” he said.
The Hyderabad MP took a dig at the police officials and the media, stating that how the media portrays the case, decides who the culprits are.
“Police officers hold press conferences in such cases, and the way the media covers the case, it kind of decides the guilt of a person. In many such terror cases, investigating agencies have failed us miserably,” Asaduddin Owaisi said in post on X.
Also Read2006 Mumbai blasts: Bombay HC acquits all 12 accused
Taking a dig at the Congress, which was in power during the Mumbai blasts in 2006, the AIMIM president said, “Please remember which parties where ruling Maharashtra in 2006 they are also responsible for disregarding complaints of torture…of course the 6pm & 9pm (So called )Nationalist who passed judgments on the guilt of the accused.”
Innocent people are sent to jail and then years later when they are released from jail there is no possibility for reconstruction of their lives. From last 17 years these accused are in jail. They haven't stepped out even for a day. The majority of their prime life is gone. In… https://t.co/nknsG344jk— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) July 21, 2025
Owaisi pointed out that the family members of the accused died after they were convicted of the blasts. The Hyderabad MP questioned the Maharastra government as to how it would deal with the acquitted persons and the families of the 2006 blast victims.
Bombay HC acquits accused
Owaisi’s remark comes after 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.
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 High Court observed.
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 High Court 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.
(With Inputs from PTI)
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