2006 Mumbai train blasts: Bombay High Court acquits all 12 accused

The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all 12 accused in the 2006 train blast case, declaring them innocent.

Th Special bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak overturned the lower court's order saying that the prosecution utterly failed to prove case against them. Five months ago the HC had reserved the matter for judgment.

On July 11, 2006, A series of bombs ripped through seven western suburban coaches of a train, killing 189 commuters and injuring 824. The trial court had in 2015 sentenced five to death and seven to life imprisonment.

The 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 and sentenced to death by the trial court. However, the HC has now acquitted the accused.

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.

Meanwhile, Ansari, one of the convicts on death row, died due to Covid-19 in Nagpur prison in 2021.

In July 2024, the HC constituted a special bench led by Justice Kilor, which conducted regular hearings for nearly six months

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.