Bombay HC acquits all 12, including Majid, Muzammil, and Tanveer in 7/11 Mumbai train blasts, earlier MCOCA court had convicted and sentenced 5 of them to death
The Bombay High Court on Monday (21st July) acquitted all 12 individuals who were earlier found guilty in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case. Almost a decade ago, a special court had sentenced five of them to death and the remaining to life imprisonment. But now, the High Court has held that the prosecution was unable to establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judgment was given by a special bench of Judges Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak. They observed that the majority of the evidence and statements of witnesses were not trustworthy. For instance, the Court stated it was difficult to accept that taxi drivers or individuals who were travelling by train would be able to remember the faces of the accused so accurately, even after 100 days since the incident happened.
Discussing the circumstantial evidence, such as bombs, guns and maps, the Court stated that it made no difference in the case since the police hadn’t even been able to ascertain the kind of bomb used during the explosions.
One of the twelve accused persons, Kamal Ansari, had passed away in 2021 because of COVID-19 while he was under detention in Nagpur jail. The remaining 11, who have spent 19 years behind bars, are now set to walk free.
This case is about the horrifying serial blasts that happened on Mumbai’s local trains on 11th July, 2006. Seven bombs went off in different compartments of Western Railway trains during the evening rush hour. Around 189 people were killed and more than 800 were injured.
After a long trial under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), a special court had, in 2015, convicted five of the accused to death and seven others to imprisonment for life. The five sentenced to death were Kamal Ansari, Mohammad Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Naveed Khan and Asif Khan.
The seven accused sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial court were Tanveer Ahmed Ansari, Mohammed Majid Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Muzzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed Latifur Rehman Shaikh. All were held guilty of planting the bombs.
The State government had approached the High Court to affirm the death penalty. The accused had also appealed against their conviction in the meantime. The case had been pending in the High Court for years. Only in July 2024 did the High Court constitute a special bench to hear it daily.
Senior lawyers such as S. Muralidhar, Yug Mohit Chaudhry, Nitya Ramakrishnan and S. Nagamuthu appeared on behalf of the accused and pleaded that the trial court had seriously erred. However, the lawyer from the State, Raja Thakare, pleaded that the punishment was warranted since the case was one of the “rarest of rare” sort.
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