Acquittal of 7/11 suspects calls for an intense review of India’s anti-terror mechanism

The Mumbai blasts in 2006 – also referred to as 7/11 – remains the most horrific terror attack mounted against India.

A special two judge bench of the Bombay High Court acquitted all the 12 accused in the July 11, 2006 Mumbai train blast case that killed 189 innocent people and injured over 800 commuters and bystanders.

In an unprecedented decision, Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak overturned the September 2015 judgement of a special court constituted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), which had sentenced five of the accused to death and awarded life imprisonment to seven. For the record, the accused persons were all Muslim citizens of India.

The verdict is to be welcomed

The High Court judgement is to be welcomed, even if it has taken 19 years for the accused to finally get ‘true’ justice based on judicial rectitude. The silver lining here is that the Indian higher judicial system has risen to the challenge of rigorously reviewing a faulty verdict. It heard the case for six months and ensured that no innocent citizens were punished for crimes that could not be proven as having been committed by them. Furthermore, the RTI system has proved its worth to empower citizens.

In their 671-page judgement, Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak noted: “Punishing the actual perpetrator of a crime is a concrete and essential step toward curbing criminal activities, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring the safety and security of citizens. But creating a false appearance of having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution. This deceptive (emphasis added) closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society, while in reality, the true threat remains at large. Essentially, this is what the case at hand conveys.”

Erosion of trust

The operative word here is ‘deceptive’ and this conclusion by the Bombay High Court has very significant and alas, damaging implications - both in the domestic context and at the international level, in relation to the credibility of the Indian state in dealing with terrorism. At the domestic level, the trust of the common citizen – especially those who are classified as minorities - which has already been eroded will be further eroded. The trajectory from 2006 to 2025 reiterates a long held fear and suspicion about how fair and just the preliminary investigative and lower court processes really are when it comes to the more vulnerable citizens.

The manner in which the special court arrived at its 2015 decision points to a combination of professional ineptitude compounded by various shades of turpitude that indict the police, the Maharashtra ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) in particular and the lower judiciary. There is no denying that Mumbai 2006 – also referred to as 7/11 – remains the most horrific terror attack mounted against India (a total of 189 killed) and preliminary investigation indicated that the very professional manner in which multiple train blasts were mounted had an Islamist jihadi texture, with the involvement of terror groups in Pakistan.

However, the investigation by the local ATS was below the high professionalism associated with the erstwhile Bombay police and for reasons best known to it – the special court did not take suitable cognizance of the inadequacies in the evidence presented. These included ‘cut and paste’ confessional statements, allegations of custodial torture and relying on witness accounts that were legally weak. Collectively they pointed to a series of major lapses. Hence, in its judgement, the High Court asserted that the 2015 judgement “utterly failed to establish offences beyond reasonable doubt against the accused on each count.”

Due credit must also be given to senior advocate S Muralidhar (former Chief Justice of the Odisha High Court) who represented the accused sentenced to life imprisonment and highlighted the serious investigative lapses that enabled the flawed 2015 judgement.

Root-and-branch review is the need of the hour

Given that India has been dealing with terrorism of various hues since the early 1990’s – these lapses are indefensible and call for a rigorous root-and-branch review and redressal policy initiative. However the political overlap and meddling in such cases is a major constraint and senior police officials and those from the intelligence agencies have bemoaned this malaise.

Red flags had been raised as far back as 1993 when then PM Narasimha Rao had formed a committee headed by the Home Secretary NN Vohra to review the criminal-politics nexus. The Report dwelt on the alarming nexus between crime and politics in India and highlighted the intricate web of connections between criminal syndicates, politicians, and bureaucrats, revealing how these networks were virtually running a parallel government. In a damning indictment, the report emphasized that criminals were increasingly gaining political patronage and protection from government officials, with some even becoming elected representatives.

The majoritarian contour in Indian politics and the vilification of the Muslim citizen have become very pronounced and this in turn impacts the credibility of the Indian state in the global context. If serious investigative lapses point to deeply embedded institutional ineptitude, the political abdication and worse – active abetment by elected representatives in distorting judicial rectitude reeks of deplorable turpitude.

Undermines India’s against state sponsored terrorism

India which is leading the global charge against terrorism must acquire and exude competence and integrity as a nation that is both resolute and just in its approach to containing terrorism.

It merits notice that the perpetrators of the 2006 Mumbai train blasts and Pahalgam 2025 are yet to be apprehended and the world is monitoring this bleak track record.

Will this grave matter that impacts national security be discussed in parliament? Alas, no. Let alone empathetic victim compensation for 19 lost years - the current political frenzy is that of the Maharashtra government rushing to the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the Bombay High Court acquittal. This is deeply disappointing.