Mumbai: A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court on Monday discharged eight Muslim accused from the decade-old Malegaon bomb blast case in which 31 persons had lost their lives.
There were a total of nine accused in this case and the court has discharged all of them. The judgment, however, came too late for Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah as he died pending trial and two other accused, Mohammed Ali Shaikh and Asif Khan, despite being discharged from the case will remain in prison because they were convicted in the 2006 Mumbai local serial train blasts case.
Noorul Huda Shamsudduha, Raees Ahmed Mansuri, Mohammed Zahid Ansari, Abrar Ahmed Gulam Ahmed, Dr Farog Iqbal Ahmed Magdumi and Dr Salman Farsi were the other accused discharged by special MCOCA judge V.V. Patil.
The ATS and also accused belonging to a right-wing Hindu extremist group arrested by the NIA in this case had opposed discharge application filed
by eight accused saying that the court should take into consideration material put on record by the ATS and CBI that were against these nine accused. Though the reasons for discharge are not known yet, the contention of the defence was that Section 6 of the NIA Act gives an overriding effect to the NIA over other agencies like ATS and CBI and hence the court should take into account the investigation carried out by the NIA and not other agencies. The defence had also argued that the motive contended by the ATS for carrying out the blast by nine Muslim accused is illogical, as it has claimed that the accused wanted communal riots in Malegaon. “Had it been their intention then being a Muslim why would they carry out blasts in a Masjid or a Muslim crematorium? They would have done this in a temple,” said advocate Sharif Shaikh, adding that the court would have considered this.
Interestingly, Dr Salman Farsi had not filed for discharge. “My view was that I am innocent and whatever material the NIA has put before the court proves my innocence and hence the court itself should discharge me from the case and hence I had not filed a discharge application,” said Dr Farsi, while speaking to The Asian Age. He also said, “ATS falsely implicated us and when the government announced that the investigation would be handed over to the CBI, the ATS filed a chargesheet against us on day 59. Though it had 180 more days on its hands to complete its investigation, they filed it in a hurry so that CBI could not change their line of investigation and their lie is not uncovered. But, now the court has discharged us.”
The case took a crucial turn in 2012 itself when Swami Assemanand, an accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing case, allegedly revealed to the probe agency the role of a Hindu right wing outfit in the 2006 Malagaon blasts case.
The star witness of the ATS, Abrar Ahmed, on the basis of whose statement all the nine accused from Malegaon were arrested, turned hostile in 2010 and had filed a detailed affidavit (in Urdu) claiming that the ATS had lured him to give false evidence against all accused.
Three accused persons of this case had also moved court seeking discharge at that time on the basis of the affidavit filed by Abrar, claiming that his current confession in the form of affidavit is in his mothertongue Urdu and the confession given to ATS is in Hindi and contains what could be complicated words in the language for Abrar. However, the court had rejected their application at that time.
Later, the case took a turn when Swami Aseemanand alias Jatin Chatterjee, an accused in Samjhauta train blast case, stated in his confessional statement before a magistrate that the Malegaon blasts was masterminded by a Hindu group.
The NIA started investigations on this line and arrested four accused from a right-wing group. Now these accused will face trial. Another four are absconding.
The arrest of the second set of accused paved way for the release of nine accused on bail and they also field discharge application later. Advocate Khan Abdul Wahab, one of the defence lawyers appointed by Jamiat-e-Ulema Maharashtra to defend these accused, said, “Other accused of this case had filed for discharge and once the court comes to the conclusion that all the accused in the matter are innocent, then the court has the power to discharge an accused even if he has not filed for discharge.”
Another defence lawyer, Sharif Shaikh, said, “People of India, especially Muslims, had lost their faith on the investigating agencies and political parties because in each and every bomb blast they were implicating Muslims. But the people of the community have faith on Indian judiciary and finally the court discharged the accused. This has proved that the innocent get justice in our system.”
