#Malegaon: Muslim accused discharged, but justice is far from done
The 2006 Malegaon blasts case is a story of how prejudice, incompetence and political pressure is wrecking our justice delivery system.
On 25 April, a special court in Mumbai discharged nine Muslim men who were accused of carrying out the blasts. One of them is no more, having died in an accident last year, while two have been convicted in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case.
While the judgement wasn't available till late Monday evening, the court is expected to have relied on the findings of the NIA which had categorically rubbished the charges made against them by the Maharashtra ATS and the CBI.
Soon after a series of blasts took place outside a cemetery in Malegaon on 8 September 2006, "sources" in the ATS were quoted in leading newspapers claiming that the blasts had been executed by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba.
The CBI, which took over the case in July 2007, reached the same conclusion in its supplementary chargesheet filed in February 2010. All this while stories continued to appear in the media, where "sources" kept revealing information about the links of the nine accused with several terrorist outfits and their "Pakistan trips".
Then in January 2011, revelations made by the Sangh Parivar leader Swami Aseemanand, pulled the rug from under everyone's feet. He confessed that he had conspired with other Hindutva extremists to bomb Muslim religious places "to take revenge for every Islamist terror act". "A bomb for a bomb policy" he called it.
The NIA then not only rubbished the findings of the ATS and the CBI, it stated on record that witnesses produced by the ATS against the Muslim accused had been "pressurised". It found that Hindu extremists were behind the Malegaon attack and arrested four of them in 2013.
Despite this, the NIA did not support the discharge of the nine Muslim men, leading to questions being asked as to the agency's intentions. The NIA told the special court on 13 April that it was not the "right stage" to evaluate the evidence against the nine accused.
Also read: Malegaon: NIA's shifting stand on the Muslim accused erodes its credibility
Suspect intentions
"NIA's silence (on the discharge of the accused) was as good as opposing their bail. And this came after the ATS had already caused a lot of damage, and not just to these men. Had the ATS gone after the real criminals, they could have perhaps prevented many more terror attacks like the 2008 Malegaon blasts, Mecca Masjid, Modasa, Samjhauta... and saved many lives," said Abdul Wahab, the counsel who appeared for the accused.
Doubts over the NIA's intentions were first raised when Rohini Salian, the then Special Public Prosecutor, revealed in an interview last June that certain "higher-up Hindu officers in the NIA during the UPA's tenure blocked the discharge of Muslim accused in the Malegaon blast case of September 2006".
Speaking to Catch about the special court's ruling on Monday, Salian said the nine accused "have suffered". "But justice has been done. And for this reason I feel very happy," she added.
Mahmood Pracha, a noted criminal lawyer who has represented Muslims slapped with false terror charges, said the NIA, after taking over the probe, has been delaying the filing of the chargesheet "for reasons that aren't quite clear".
Also read: Hindutva terror cases are stalling: here are the facts. Connect the dots
"This is now the issue that questions their credibility. Do they think these nine accused are the real culprits? They have in the past given them a clean chit. NIA now needs to find out and declare the people who it thinks are behind the attacks. This agency cannot let the real culprits go scot-free."The nine Muslim have spent five years in jail for a crime that, as the special court ruled, they had not committed.
No accountability
After they successfully applied for bail in 2011 following Aseemanand's revelations, the former Home Secretary GK Pillai had called their arrest and incarceration a "tragedy".
Also read: Mander's PIL: Malegaon mess means tough choices for the Supreme Court
Pillai admitted that the nine men had "lost very valuable years of their life in jail. For no crime, for no fault of theirs. And to that extent, I think the state owes them an apology, compensation and rehabilitation. I think that no doubt this has to be done."
He had also raised questions over the investigation that had led to these people being arrested in the first place. "I think the more important issue is to see where did we wrong in the investigation. And how did the investigation lead to these people and see whether we have any lessons to learn from that. So that such mistakes are not repeated in future."
But who pays for the five years of their lives that were wasted in jail? What about the law, the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, under which it's so easy for any anti-terror force to incarcerate people?
Shahid Nadeem, who has represented the nine men in the past, said MCOCA, under which they had been imprisoned for nine years, must be scrutinised. "This act was meant to deter money laundering and crack down on organised crime syndicates. But using a provision of the law, which makes confessions made in presence of a DCP rank officer permissible in the court, investigating agencies have made a norm of slapping MCOCA on innocent people, framing charges and putting them behind bars, without fear of reprisal."
Despite Monday's ruling, it may be a bit premature for the eight men to breath easy. The NIA could be contemplating approaching a higher court against the ruling. If it indeed does, it would mean the agency wants two different sets of people to be tried for the same offence.
It sounds absurd, but given the pace at which this case is taking twists, it may well happen.
Edited by Mehraj D. Lone
Also read: Suhas Warke: NIA cop who wanted to shield Malegaon accused
First published: 25 April 2016, 11:47 IST
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