11/7 Mumbai train bombings: MCOCA court had rejected defence's claims of custodial torture & IM hand
MUMBAI: In a 1,839-page judgment, now overturned by Bombay HC, the special MCOCA court in 2015 had rejected the defence's claim that Indian Mujahideen (IM) was responsible for the 11/7 Mumbai train bombings.
On Sept 30, 2015, five alleged bomb planters had been sentenced to death and seven others handed life sentences. Special judge Yatin Shinde, since deceased, had said that police officials who initially entertained this theory, particularly after the 'confession' of alleged IM member Sadiq Shaikh, 'fell prey to the tactics or strategy of terrorist organisations to confuse the investigating agency'. The judge attempted to dismantle the defence's argument, pointing out that the alleged modus operandi of IM — sending emails before blasts and claiming responsibility — was not observed in the train attacks.
The judge refuted defence arguments that the convicts were merely 'foot soldiers' acting at the behest of mastermind Azam Cheema. The judge observed, 'The 12 are not foot soldiers. Though the idea of the present crime generated from across the border, they formed an independent organised crime syndicate on the basis of their background of being members and activists of banned organisation SIMI. They did spadework and groundwork using their brains.
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The eleven confession statements, now deemed inadmissible by HC, found mention in over 200 pages of the 2015 judgment. The judge had rejected claims of torture and ill-treatment made by several accused. The judge said allegations of 'inhuman and unbearable' torture by ATS were unsubstantiated by the available evidence. 'It is unacceptable and impossible that the accused, who were duly represented by their advocates and who had been meeting their family members, did not complain even on a single occasion to magistrates,' the judge said.
The judge had awarded the death sentence to five convicts, identifying them as the most culpable due to their direct role in planting the bombs. 'The accused thought that they can outsmart the intelligence and investigating agencies and therefore developed new stories every time and adopted various tactics. I am, therefore, constrained to hold that...deserve only death penalty and nothing less than that,' the judge had said.
While all 12 were found guilty of offences punishable by death, the judge deemed it unjustifiable to impose the maximum penalty on seven, who were sentenced to life in prison. 'One cannot say with certainty that the remaining seven accused would have taken the last step of pulling the trigger — planting the bomb — or would have backed out,' the judge stated.
The judge emphasised that the option of sentencing the five bomb planters to life imprisonment was ruled out by 'the simple fact of the massacre of human beings'.
'These are not simple murders and this is not a simple murder case. It was mindless, cold-blooded and wanton killing of innocent, defenceless and unsuspecting persons,' the judge asserted. noted that the prosecution rightly described the accused as 'merchants of death'.
Rubbishing the defence, the court held it was not up to it to decide whether a person acted according to religion or not. 'It is a question in these modern days as to how many Muslims, or for that matter Hindus or persons of any religion, follow their religion scrupulously. If they would have followed religion scrupulously, there would not have been crimes of murder, rape and blasts, etc.'
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