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HC quashes conviction & acquits all 12 accused in 2006 Mumbai train blasts case

HC quashes conviction & acquits all 12 accused in 2006 Mumbai train blasts case

Time of India5 days ago
Mumbai: Severely indicting the prosecution for the case it had made out and the state anti-terror squad for its shoddy probe, the Bombay high court on Monday quashed the conviction of all 12 accused found guilty a decade ago for the July 11, 2006 synchronised Mumbai train blasts between Mahim and Borivli that left 187 dead and 824 injured.
The HC refused to confirm death sentences for five and life sentences given on Sept 30, 2015 to seven by the special court set up under the anti-organised crime Act and acquitted all, directing their immediate release.
Punishment for an actual criminal is essential to uphold the rule of law, but "creating a false appearance of having solved a case… gives a misleading sense of resolution. This deceptive closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society, while in reality, the true threat remains at large.
Essentially, this is what the case at hand conveys," a special bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak observed in the introduction to their 671-page judgment, before shredding the prosecution case.
The identification parade was not conducted properly, witnesses identifying accused in dock after four years lacked credibility and MCOCA was invoked without application of mind, the HC said, discarding confession statements relied on for want of "trustworthiness and completeness."
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The HC also accepted defence arguments of torture of accused vitiating confessional statements.
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"The prosecution utterly failed to establish the offence beyond reasonable doubt against the accused on each count. It is unsafe to reach the satisfaction that the accused committed the offences for which they were convicted and sentenced," the bench held.
After over six months of hearing and going through more than 44,000 pages of record, Bombay HC concluded the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) had no case against the 12 accused in the 11/7 train blasts case.
Over two decades ago, bombs planted on first-class compartments exploded during the peak evening commute at seven locations on the Western Railway suburban network. They ripped metal and lives between Khar Road and Santacruz, Bandra and Khar Road, Jogeshwari and Mahim Junction, Mira Road and Bhayander, Matunga and Mahim Junction, and Borivli.
The prosecution case was of sophisticated explosive RDX being used, of accused being members of terror outfits like SIMI who received training in Pakistan, and of 15 wanted accused, mainly Pakistanis.
While the trial court's special MCOCA judge Y D Shinde in 2015 said special public prosecutor Raja Thakare had rightly described the accused as "merchants of death" and Thakare argued that the trial verdict could not be dislodged and the noose be confirmed, the HC noted the prosecution case had unravelled completely.
The HC also held that the prosecution failed to prove what kind of explosive was used. It said no importance can be attached to claims of recovery of RDX, circuit boards and detonators, as prosecution failed to prove custody chain before analysis.
The dozen men were in prison all along since their arrests in 2006. While one of them died in 2021, the 11 whose appeals were allowed joined on Monday via video-conferencing from prisons across the state, including Pune's Yerawada and prisons in Nashik, Amravati and Nagpur.
"Bahut bahut shukriya Sir," said a convict, in white prison uniform with a white topi, on video conference from Yerawada, when defence lawyer Yug Chaudhri, conveyed to them in Hindi that they all stood freed.
The HC, in a detailed analysis of the case and evidence on record, said while "prosecution has referred to Al-Qaeda Manual for many things, nothing is brought on record about it."
The prosecution case was that wanted accused Azam Cheema alias Babaji, a Pakistani national, and two of the accused given death sentence as planters had conspired since 1999 to wage war against the govt of India and were in touch with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Conspiracy meetings were held in Bandra and one accused brought six Pakistanis to Mumbai in 2006, ATS had said. HC wondered why no CDRs were brought on record. "The alleged connection of the accused with Azam Cheema and members of LeT could have been established with the help of CDRs," HC said.
The HC classified prosecution witnesses in four categories: for identification, eyewitnesses of bomb assembly, of conspiracy, and taxi drivers who allegedly ferried two planters.
The court discarded their testimonies as doubtful. For one who claimed to have been to a planter's (A3, an alleged 'jihadist') house where he allegedly saw a few Pakistanis whose names he recalled but did not know what the meeting was for, the HC, doubting his credibility, said that "at the same time, he could not recollect the name of a particular dancer, with whom he had a close relationship for over a month in the same year.
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Kamal Ansari, given death sentence by the trial judge, died in 2021. He too stood acquitted by HC. Apart from convicts' appeals, before the HC was the state's reference for death sentence confirmation, as required by law for capital punishment to become executable. Thakare and Avdhoot Chimalkar for the state argued the appeals were fit to be dismissed. The conviction relied primarily on the confessions of 11 accused under the stringent MCOCA Act to nail them.
Before HC, an alleged planter Naved Khan, from Nagpur prison, had said he suffered "needlessly for 19 years" and while lives were lost, innocents could not be hanged.
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Behind the 7/11 acquittals, a legal cell which worked quietly and tirelessly for 19 years
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Behind the 7/11 acquittals, a legal cell which worked quietly and tirelessly for 19 years

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We shudder at the pain of the victims. The accused should be arrested and brought to book. Justive will be served only then,' he says.

Epstein case: Kevin Spacey says Bill Clinton was on Jeffery's jet with "young girls"; 'didn't want to be around this guy'
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This family self-deported to Mexico, and lost everything
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Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category MCA others Healthcare Public Policy Data Science Others Operations Management Degree Digital Marketing Management Artificial Intelligence Project Management Data Science Product Management Finance PGDM healthcare Leadership Data Analytics MBA CXO Technology Design Thinking Cybersecurity Skills you'll gain: Programming Proficiency Data Handling & Analysis Cybersecurity Awareness & Skills Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Duration: 24 Months Vellore Institute of Technology VIT Master of Computer Applications Starts on Aug 14, 2024 Get Details Coria, 25, took odd jobs as a cleaner and her husband, Carlos Leon, also 25, worked as a gardener. Their eldest child Naomi, eight, was going to a local charter school, making friends and picking up English. In the small kidney-shaped pool of the condominium building where they lived, she had learned to swim. Little Carlos, five, was learning to ride a bike. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Indonesia: New Container Houses (Prices May Surprise You) Container House | Search ads Search Now Undo Their neighborhood in western Glendale - a city of some 250,000 people just outside Phoenix - was home to lots of Mexican migrants. Opposite their apartment block was a small butcher, Carniceria Uruapan, named after the town they had fled in the dangerous Mexican state of Michoacan. They had bought their first car on installments - a tan-colored 2008 Ford F-150 pickup truck that cost them $4,000. They were still poor, sometimes going to soup kitchens for a meal or picking up appliances and toys that neighbors had thrown out, but it was a life they could only have dreamed of back home in Mexico. Live Events Trump's campaign, and his victory, changed how they felt about living in the United States. They had followed the law, entering the United States at a border crossing and applying for asylum. The application was in process. But they now worried they could lose everything. "We run the risk of them taking away the little we've managed to scrape together," Coria remembers telling her husband that night as election coverage played on the television. Leon nodded and hugged his wife. They began to cry quietly, afraid Carlos and Naomi would hear them as they played on the floor in the bedroom they all shared. The kids had been allowed to stay up late, so that Coria and Leon could watch the results come in. The family's account is based on interviews with Leon, Coria and NGOs that helped them on their return to Mexico. Reuters was not able to verify all details of their journey, but core facts were supported by photos, videos, messages, and customs documents the family shared. As the Trump administration vows to enact the "largest deportation operation in American history," authorities have raided workplaces, sent alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and deployed National Guard and active-duty Marines to contain anti-government protests in Los Angeles. Beyond the 239,000 people the administration has deported so far, some cuffed and led on to planes, the very public expulsion of migrants has had another effect: triggering tough and complicated decisions in immigrant households across the U.S. on whether to stay or leave. As they discussed returning to Mexico, Leon set one condition: That they wait until after Trump took office on January 20, to save up some more money and to see if he proved as hardline on migration as he'd promised. In the end, fear led them to leave before Trump had even been sworn in. 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Figures from last year were unavailable. Self-deportation is not a new idea. During the Great Depression and again in 1954's Operation Wetback, U.S. deportation campaigns pressured over a million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans to leave - far more than through formal deportations. "Self-deportation is not an accident, but a deliberate strategy," said Maria Jose Espinosa, executive director at CEDA, a non-profit organization in Washington that works to improve relations between the U.S. and Latin American countries. 'LEFT WITH NOTHING' On January 19, Coria, Leon, and the two kids packed what they could fit into their F-150 and drove toward the Mexican border. It was just a three-hour drive. A few weeks before, they had witnessed immigration enforcement detaining the father of a Mexican family living two doors down from them. That, Coria said, had made up their minds. A lawyer they saw at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix reinforced their view, telling them that their asylum application was weak and they would likely be deported. The consulate told Reuters the lawyer, Hugo Larios, did on occasion offer free consultations, but they did not have access to details of what was discussed or a record of the Coria-Leon family visiting in January, only in April 2024. Larios did not respond to requests for comment. It was a hard decision to leave. They had fled their hometown in February last year after armed men claiming to be members of the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel began showing up at the avocado farm where Leon was working as a guard, demanding protection money. Leon didn't have the money to pay, and the owner was away. Now, they were going back. Uruapan is one of the most violent cities in the world, with an official murder rate of nearly 60 per 100,000 inhabitants. In recent years organized crime has taken over the area, running or extorting farms and businesses and killing those who refuse to pay. But the family hoped their savings would make a difference. They had managed to scrape together $5,000 and the plan was to buy land and open an auto repair shop using their pickup truck to help with the business. At 5 p.m., on January 19, they drew up to the Dennis DeConcini border crossing at Nogales. As they passed Mexican customs, the Mexican National Guard stopped their vehicle and asked for papers, the family said. Leon didn't have the car title, just a temporary permit issued that day, so officials confiscated the truck and threatened to arrest him for vehicle smuggling. The officials also took $5,000, the family's entire savings, for what they called a fine before Leon could go free. With no car and no money, Coria, Leon, Naomi and Carlos sat on the ground outside customs, surrounded by their remaining possessions - 100 kilos of clothing, tools, kitchen utensils, a television, refrigerator, and children's toys. "We lost everything," Coria recalled, in tears. "We left with nothing and came back worse off." A spokesperson from Mexico's National Customs Agency declined to comment on the specifics of the Coria case. She said in an email to Reuters that its office "acts in strict adherence to the legal framework governing the entry and exit of merchandise, as well as the customs control applicable to persons and vehicles crossing points of entry into the national territory." Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum told journalists this month that her government is strengthening its "Mexico Embraces You" program to receive Mexican migrants voluntarily returning from the U.S. to ensure "they are not subject to any act of corruption by customs or immigration when they enter our country." The program offers a $100 cash grant, job placement, free transportation to their places of origin, and facilities for importing goods, but the family returned before it went into action. As the sun began to set, the dry desert air turned cold. The family worried about where to spend the night and how they would reach Michoacan, some 2,000 kilometers away. They were spotted by Francisco Olachea, a nurse with Voices from the Border, a humanitarian organization that works on both sides of the border. Olachea remembers approaching the crying family outside customs and offering them a hand. They loaded the Corias' belongings onto the NGO's ambulance and a rented pickup truck paid for by Olachea and another NGO, Salvavision. That night, Olachea took them to NANA Ministries, a Christian organization in the border town of Nogales. They were offered water, fruit, coffee, and pozole, a traditional Mexican broth made from corn kernels with meat and vegetables. The four spent the night in a small room. Together, Voices from the Border and Salvavision raised just over $1,000 to buy the family bus tickets to Michoacan and send some belongings to Sonia Coria's mother's house in black garbage bags. What they couldn't send was donated to the church where they had spent the night. On January 20, the family returned to Uruapan. The four of them shared a small room with no door in the tin-roofed home belonging to Coria's mother. The couple slept on the floor, and the kids shared a bed with no mattress. They later moved into an even smaller room at an aunt's house. Leon eventually found work in a car repair workshop. Coria got a job in a Chinese restaurant. The children complain about leaving the United States. Carlos asks for his bike; Naomi is forgetting her English. In June, a 62-page letter from customs seen by Reuters informed them that their truck had been seized and had become property of the federal treasury. Also, that they owe the equivalent of $18,000 in customs duties for bringing in the F-150 to Mexico.

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