The judgment comes 19 years after the terror attack that shook the city’s Western Railway network, resulting in the loss of over 180 lives.
The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted the 12 persons convicted in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case. Out of the 12, five convicts were on death row. 187 people were killed while 820 others were injured in the train bombings.
A division bench of justice Anil Kilor and justice Shyam C Chandak pronounced the verdict on Monday.
“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 said.
Between 18:23 and 18:28 hours on July 11, 2006, seven high intensity, highly sophisticated explosive devices ripped through first-class gent’s compartments of seven suburban trains on Western line, leaving 187 dead and 829 injured. The attackers had targeted crowded trains proceeding towards distant suburbs and the blasts took place in moving trains between Matunga and Mira Road railway stations.
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The explosions were so powerful that they ripped through the double layered thick steel roofs and sides of each of the seven compartments, throwing passengers – dead and injured out. At Mahim and Borivali railway stations, apart from the passengers in the compartments, the explosions killed and injured even the passengers waiting on platform and those travelling from the trains proceeding towards Churchgate.
The blasts at Mahim, Bandra and Mira Road railway stations took place simultaneously at 6:23pm, and the last blast took place at Borivali station at 6:28pm, suggesting that timer devices were used to cause the blasts simultaneously and at specific places.
The explosions, the prosecution claimed, were aimed at large scale devastation of life and property and to create widespread panic and chaos.
On September 30, 2015, a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court pronounced the verdict, and sentenced five of the 13 accused – Kamal Ahmed Mohammed Vakil Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh,Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique, Naveed Hussain Khan Rasheed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan Bashir Khan aka Juned aka Abdulla – to death.
The court sentenced seven others – Tanveer Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Mohamad Majid Mohamad Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammad Sajid Margub Ansari,Muzzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh, and Zameer Ahmed Latifur Rehman Shaikh – to life imprisonment.
Abdul Wahid Din Mohammad Shaikh was the only person to be acquitted of all the charges levelled against him.
The article originally appeared on Hindustan Times
