The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all 12 convicts, including those on death row, in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts in which 187 people were killed and 820 others sustained injuries.
Bombay High Court is on
The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all 12 convicts, including those on death row, in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts in which 187 people were killed and 820 others sustained injuries.
The decision came after the prosecution “utterly failed” to prove the case against the accused.
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“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,” a division bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam C Chandak said while pronouncing the verdict.
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In 2015, a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) had pronounced 12 of the 13 accused guilty for the bombings.
Of them, five accused — Naveed Hussain Khan, Kamal Ahmed Mohammed Vakil Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique, and Asif Khan Bashir Khan aka Juned aka Abdulla — were sentenced to death.
Seven others — Mohamad Majid Mohamad Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammad Sajid Margub Ansari, Tanveer Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Muzzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Zameer Ahmed Latifur Rehman Shaikh, and Suhail Mehmood Shaikh — were awarded life imprisonment.
One of the accused, Abdul Wahid Din Mohammad Shaikh, was acquitted by the court.
On July 11, 2006, explosions rocked seven trains on the Western Line. The trains were fully crowded and were moving between Matunga and Mira Road railway stations. Blasts had also occurred simultaneously at Mahim, Bandra, Mira Road, and Borivali railway stations, leaving a total of 187 people dead and 820 wounded.
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