11/7 acquittal: HC slams prosecution's failure to establish type of bombs used to hit Mumbai trains
"The prosecution has utterly failed to establish the offence beyond the reasonable doubt against the accused on each count, it is unsafe to reach the satisfaction that the Appellants/Accused have committed the offences for which they have been convicted and sentenced," said a bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Justice S. Chandak.
On July 11, 2006, seven bomb serial blasts in packed Mumbai local trains brought the maximum city on its knees within 11 minutes.
The terror attack left 189 dead and 800 injured.
Out of the 12 people convicted by the trial court, five were handed death sentences and others were given life imprisonment.
The High Court's acquittal order is a major blow to the investigation agencies which, according to Justices Kilor and Chandak, failed to even present evidence on the type of bombs used in the serial blasts.
"The circuit boards recovered from Mohd. Faisal Shaikh and Mohammad Sajid Margub Ansari are of no help to the prosecution to establish the present offence as the prosecution failed to bring any evidence on record and to establish the type of bombs used in the present crime," the High Court said.
Justices Kilor and Chandak said, "Though the prosecution brought on record the technical report of the expert about the circuit board, it failed to establish the type of bombs used in the present crime. Thus, the said recovery is not relevant."
On Monday, the 12 accused -- incarcerated for 19 years -- also succeeded to establish in the High Court the fact of torture inflicted on them to extort confessional statements.
As a result, the High Court held the statements inadmissible saying, "On all the tests relating to voluntariness and truthfulness of the confessional statements, the prosecution failed."
The prosecution case against the accused was weakened further when it failed to share with the defence the Call Detail Record -- which were relied upon heavily to file charges.
In 2015, a special court had convicted 12 accused in the case -- sentenced five of them to death and seven others to life imprisonment.
Faisal Shaikh, Asif Khan, Kamal Ansari, Ehtesham Siddiqui, and Naveed Khan were sentenced to death. They had challenged this sentence in the High Court.
The prosecution had argued that the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, and carried out by operatives of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group.
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