2006 Mumbai train blasts: It started in a jail cell. Now, it fights to free those wrongfully jailed

Time of India

5 days ago

LONG BATTLE: Wahid Shaikh, who helped found the network, was acquitted in the case in 2015. Soon, his role shifted from accused to advocate
Besides its work on the 11/7 case, the Innocence Network India is helping other terror accused with legal aid
A narrow, rain-soaked lane in Mumbai's Vikhroli leads to a small ground-floor room.
Inside, a few chairs, a chatai, shelves of books, and maps of India and the world hang on the wall.
This unassuming space is the 'secretariat' of Innocence Network India, a coalition of lawyers, prison-rights activists and civil society groups who work for 'the rights of those wrongfully prosecuted or convicted, especially under terrorism charges.'
On July 21, when the Bombay high court acquitted all 12 men convicted of the
2006 Mumbai train blasts
— also known as the 11/7 bombings — some credit was due to this little-known coalition that kept the pressure alive, along with the efforts of the Maharashtra unit office of Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind.
Wahid Shaikh, who helped found the network, is visibly happy, and yet combative, seated in his two-room tenement. It's where Shaikh, a school teacher in Nagpada, central Mumbai, spends most of his after-school hours running Acquit Undertrial, his one-man YouTube channel that amplifies cases of alleged wrongful prosecution and demands compensation for acquitted convicts. It was here that he recorded a congratulatory message for the accused and their families the night before the verdict.
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'I was 100% sure HC would exonerate them. I recorded it before the order was pronounced,' says Shaikh. He should know. He was one of 13 men arrested under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for the train blasts. He spent nine years in Arthur Road jail before being acquitted in 2015. The only one to walk free at the time.
Soon after, his role shifted from accused to advocate. On the day the prosecution sought death for eight and life terms for four, Shaikh was in court filing applications to allow two of the accused — Ehtesham Siddiqui and Sajid Ansari — to appear for their LLB exams.
That day, he said, 'This is not the end of the road. There are more doors to knock on, and a longer way to go.' In the decade since, that road became his life's work. Outside of his teaching job at a school in Nagpada, Shaikh has devoted himself to helping undertrials and families left waiting as years passed.
His journey from accused to advocate began in jail. Inside the anda cell, he read 10 newspapers a day in four languages, filed dozens of RTIs, and helped other inmates prepare their defence.
He earned an LLB, an MA in English, and wrote 'Begunah Qaidi', a 400-page Urdu memoir that was later translated into Hindi and English and adapted into a film.
By 2016, less than two years after his own acquittal, Shaikh had formalised his work by founding the Innocence Network, a coalition of lawyers, retired judges, activists, and filmmakers committed to fighting wrongful arrests and prolonged incarceration. The collective organises seminars, people's tribunals, and public campaigns for those caught in the crosshairs of terror cases.
'Innocence Network is an NGO for the exonerees, by the exonerees and of the exonerees,' explains Shaikh, 48.
He adds that many of the RTIs he filed from prison helped him and the other accused during trial.
'We had to build our case from the inside,' he says. 'That became the foundation for everything that followed.' The idea came from innocence projects across the globe. 'Such networks by civil society groups exist in different countries.
When we saw how many men were wrongly framed in terror cases and later acquitted by the courts as state failed to prove their culpability, we realised the need for such a network in India too,' says Sharib Aqleem Ali, co-founder and scholar-activist.
Over the past eight years, Innocence Network has run mobile legal-aid clinics and awareness drives. But one of its most visible tools has been People's Tribunal, a citizen-led public hearing that highlights stories the courts often overlook.
At the first such tribunal in Delhi on Oct 2, 2016, chaired by retired Delhi high court Chief Justice A P Shah, around 15 acquitted individuals shared testimonies and filmmaker Saeed Mirza was among the eight-member jury whose recommendations later informed Law Commission's Report No. 277.
'One of those recommendations was that India ratify UN Convention Against Torture, which it has signed but never formally adopted,' says Delhi-based lawyer and network facilitator Fawaz Shaheen.
Another key recommendation was repeal of Section 18 of MCOCA, which allows confessions made in police custody to be admissible, an issue central to the 11/7 trial.
A second tribunal, held in Kolkata in 2017, heard testimonies from 20 more acquitted in terror cases. The network has also compiled a dossier based on letters written by the 11/7 accused from prison, and continues to file RTIs to uncover procedural lapses and custodial irregularities. Regular meetings are held by the coalition that runs on pro bono support with mentors like retired Bombay HC judge B G Kolse Patil.
As for the blasts case, the legal fight isn't over yet. Bombay HC order acquitting all 12 has been stayed by Supreme Court. And from this tiny room in Vikhroli, the battle continues.