2006 train blasts: Bombay HC to pronounce verdict on death confirmation pleas today
After conducting hearings over six months, special bench of Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak on January 31 this year reserved its verdict on pleas filed in the high court. In 2015, the special court convicted the accused who have been in jail for over 18 years.
On July 11, 2006, a series of bombs ripped through seven western suburban coaches of a train, killing 189 commuters and injuring 824. After an over eight-year trial, a special court under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) in October 2015 awarded death penalty to five of the convicts and life terms to seven others.
Death row convicts Kamal Ansari from Bihar, Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh from Mumbai, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui from Thane, Naveed Hussain Khan from Secunderabad and Asif Khan from Jalgaon in Maharashtra were found guilty of planting the bombs.
Those awarded life term were Tanveer Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Mohammed Majid Mohammed Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Muzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed Latiur Rehman Shaikh. One of the accused, Wahid Shaikh, was acquitted by the trial court after nine years in jail.
The Maharashtra government in 2015 approached the HC with pleas seeking confirmation of death penalty granted to five convicts. On the other hand, the convicts filed appeals challenging the special court order. Ansari, one of the convicts on death row, died due to Covid-19 in Nagpur prison in 2021.
As the accused sought speedy disposal of the matter, the HC in July 2023, constituted a special bench led by Justice Kilor, which conducted regular hearings through more than 75 sittings.
The lawyers representing the convicts argued that their 'extra-judicial confessional statements' obtained by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) through 'torture' were inadmissible under the law.
They also argued that the accused were falsely implicated, innocent and were languishing in jail for 18 years without substantial evidence and their prime years were gone in incarceration. The appellants said that the trial court erred in convicting them and therefore the said order be set aside.
The Maharashtra government opposed the appeals by convicts and claimed that the probing agency had provided sufficient evidence to establish it was 'rarest of the rare' case to sentence the accused to death penalty.
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Indian Express
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'They could not prove that a dozen men gathered at our home to make bomb,' said Sohail. 'If so many men came, the neighbours would surely know. Look at how close the hutments are.' The entire neighbourhood stood in our support all these years, he said. When the family petitioned the High Court against the special court's order and the trial began, they grew hopeful. 'I prayed entire night hoping for a favourable judgement,' said Nisa, as she prepared a bag for Sohail to carry with him to Nagpur where his father is imprisoned.
