– Arshad Shaikh
Civilization cannot flourish, peace cannot prevail, and democracy cannot prosper when justice is reduced to a hollow promise. A mirage that recedes further with each step toward it. In a nation of 146 crore souls, where the complex machinery of justice delivery grinds slowly, the 2006 Mumbai train bombings case stands as a damning indictment of our justice delivery system. The recent acquittal of all 12 accused by the Bombay High Court on July 21, 2025, after nearly two decades of incarceration, exposes not only the fragility of our investigative processes but also the profound human cost of systemic failures.
The case is evidence of the phony war on terror unleashed by the global Islamophobic movement under the guise of damaging the reputation of the Muslim community and especially its youth by falsely implicating them in cases of sedition and terror. This case is a clarion call to confront the rot within our judiciary and police machinery, which disproportionately victimises the marginalised be they poor, Dalits, or Muslims.
The 2006 Serial Train blasts in Mumbai
On July 11, 2006, seven bombs ripped through Mumbai’s Western Railway line, targeting first-class compartments during the evening rush. The explosions were executed with chilling precision using RDX and ammonium nitrate stuffed in pressure cookers. They were timed to explode in the evening rush hour to inflict maximum casualties. The explosions claimed 189 lives and injured over 800.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) swiftly rounded up 13 suspects. They were accused of having ties with the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). A vicious media trial ensued declaring them dreaded and ruthless terrorists with a detailed minute-by-minute account of how they planned and executed the blasts.
In 2015, a special MCOCA court convicted 12 of them, sentencing five to death and seven to life imprisonment. The prosecution’s case rested on ‘confessional statements’, ‘eyewitness testimonies’, and ‘fragments of evidence’ like pressure cooker handles. Yet, the entire edifice of this conviction was built on sand, as the Bombay High Court’s scathing 671-page verdict revealed.
Mumbai HC rips apart the prosecution
The High Court’s ruling is a damning exposé of investigative callousness and judicial overreach. The bench, comprising Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak, declared that the prosecution “utterly failed to prove the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, casting a dark shadow on the integrity of the investigation.”
The court’s words cut deep, exposing a litany of failures: confessional statements, extracted under the shadow of torture, were deemed inadmissible, their eerie similarity suggesting they were “copy-pasted” by overzealous officers.
The judges noted, “The confessional statements, riddled with identical phraseology, betray a disturbing pattern of fabrication, undermining their sanctity and rendering them wholly unreliable.”
Witnesses, some recycled across unrelated terror cases, offered testimonies riddled with inconsistencies, with one identifying an accused four years after the incident – a delay that reeks of fabrication.
The test identification parade (TIP) was marred by procedural lapses. The prosecution could not even establish the type of explosives used. The court condemned the prosecution’s approach, stating, “By creating a false appearance of having solved the crime, the prosecution has not only failed the victims but also allowed the real perpetrators to roam free, eroding public faith in justice.”
Such shoddy work, the court emphasised, left the true culprits at large while 12 men languished in prison for 19 years.
Eerie similarity with 2008 Jaipur serial bomb blasts case
The parallels with the 2008 Jaipur serial bomb blasts case are chillingly evident. On May 13, 2008, nine bombs detonated in Jaipur’s Walled City, killing 71 and injuring over 185. The Rajasthan ATS arrested 13 individuals, with four – Mohammad Saif, Mohammad Sarwar Azmi, Saifur Rehman, and Mohammad Salman – convicted in 2019 and sentenced to death.
Speaking to Radiance, Advocate Syed Saadat Ali who was part of the defence counsel described in detail the “classic example of institutional failure resulting in botched/flawed/shoddy investigation.”
The court called into question the credibility of identification parades that were conducted to identify the accused. It highlighted the inconsistencies in the evidence collated such as bills of the cycles purchased and the travel details of the accused from Delhi to Jaipur.
However, most importantly, the court said, “It is apparent that the investigation was not fair and it appears that nefarious means were employed by the Investigating Agencies, material witnesses required to unfold the events were withheld and apparent manipulations and fabrications have been done during the investigation. We therefore deem it proper, in the interest of society, justice and morality, to direct the Director General of Police, Rajasthan, to initiate appropriate enquiry/disciplinary proceedings against the erring officers of the investigating team.”
Issues raised by the cases
The 2006 Mumbai and 2008 Jaipur cases are more than a story about Islamophobia and the war on terror. The acquittal of these Muslim men reminds us about rectifying the media narrative that tries to mask the real issues behind numerous such cases where Muslim youth come out innocent after decades of wrongful incarceration.
In a shocking move, the Maharashtra government instead of apologising to these accused and designing plans to compensate and rehabilitate them, appealed to the Supreme Court against their acquittal on July 24, 2025. The Supreme Court has put a stay on the judgment but allowed the accused to walk free for the moment.
As upholders of justice, the community must raise the issue of zero accountability for the law enforcement machinery and the judiciary who through their acts of omission and commission damaged the lives of so many individuals and their families. Not a single instance of action against those accused of torturing the acquitted and extracting fake confessions.
Even more tragic is the system allowing the “open hatred towards a community” to become the agenda of our body politic. The Quran verse 5:8 states: “O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just.” It is time for the people of our nation to emulate this noble Quranic principle.
