'The Acquitted in 7/11 Mumbai Blasts, Deserve an Apology, Yet Our Fight Goes On'

"You made a mistake and jailed innocent people, you want to continue that mistake for another 19 years?" asks Abdul.

Abdul Wahid Shaikh is one of the acquitted in the 7/11 train blasts. 

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

"In the past 19 years, they have lost a lot. The order should have come 9 months or 19 months later, but it came a little too late."

Echoing the sentiments of the 12 Muslim men acquitted by the Bombay High Court in 2006 train blasts, Abdul Wahid Shaikh said these lines with agitation in his voice.

At 25, Abdul was picked up from his home in Mumbra in 2006 and was jailed for nine years in the case. In 2015, he was acquitted by a special court while five of them were given death penalty and seven of them were awarded life imprisonment.

In a big breakthrough on 21 July, the Bombay High Court acquitted all the 12 convicted men on the grounds that the prosecution "utterly failed" to establish the offence beyond reasonable doubt against the accused.

But on Thursday, 24 July, the Supreme Court, responding to a plea by the Maharashtra government, stayed the HC's judgment but added that the accused are not required to go back to prison.

In an interview with The Quint, Shaikh recalls years of barbaric torture from the police, as recognised by the HC. On the current stay by the Supreme Court, he said:

"Prosecution also said that they are not talking about sending them back to the jail. They are mainly stating that what is written about MCOCA in the order will have an impact on other cases. To prevent that, they asked for a stay. In other words, they don't want others to benefit from this order. That they are given bail or are acquitted. Thankfully, the acquitted don't need to worry. They don't have to go to jail and can be with their families freely. We will continue the legal fight with Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's help."

Abdul Wahid Shaikh (Accused Acquitted in 2015)

In the 671-pages HC order, as accessed by The Quint, the HC's order also stated that vital evidence like CDR was destructed and they could not prove the claims of their links with Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives in Pakistan.

Here's a glimpse into our interview with Abdul Wahid Shaikh.

The Bombay HC observed that the prosecution "utterly failed" to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. What were the most striking and important points that you have taken from the Bombay High Court's order?

There were three things that were falsely imposed on us by the Anti-Terrorism Squad. Confessional statements, recoveries and eyewitness and Test Identification Parade. HC has outrightly rejected these. HC has accepted that confessional statements have been extracted under duress, torture. When it comes to recoveries, whether its RDX or detonators, these were planted. We have seen this before as well like in Ishrat Jahan case, which I wrote a book on.

Our relatives were harassed and tortured to give statements against us, they already sent 13 people to jail, they would have picked up more people and nobody could have done anything. ATS had stock witnesses, which the HC has stated. This was a fabricated case.

Given that you also wrote a book from jail, 'Begunah Qaidi.' During your incarceration, what was your experience in the jail? What did you and your fellow prisoners go through?

The common theme across prison or judicial custody is torture. There is a lot of torture in police custody and there are lot of forms of this torture. I have written a chapter on this in my book, to show the ways and techniques in which police tortures the prisoners. There are also ways in which the police ensures the torture marks are not seen in court or the accused does not complain about it in the court.

When they go for medical check-ups as per SC guidelines, before seeing the doctor also they have their tactics to hide it. When I reached the jail, there was a Superintendent Swathi Saathe. She has retired now, along with the ATS, she tried to turn us into approvers. They tried to bribe us that they will give us 10, 20, 25 lakh rupees and get us married to a Bollywood celebrity, or get us settled abroad and ATS will be in touch, etc. Sometimes bribe, sometimes threat. We were tortured whenever we refused to comply.

What was the role of RTIs in this case? Did RTIs help in obtaining information that led to strengthening the defence's case and finding loopholes in the prosecution's case?

RTI Act was established in 2005 and we went to jail in 2006. So we didn't know about it at first but then in the jail, we studied RTI Act, Constitution, CrPC and IPC. Then we realised through RTI, we could obtain information that should be in public domain.

We started seeking more information on the police officials through the RTIs, who was suspended, transferred, their postings and the fines imposed on them. If anyone had gone through a departmental inquiry, any allegations or chargesheet filed. The witnesses who stood against us in our cases, under MCOCA and UAPA their names and addresses are hidden, but when the trial started and their names came forth, then we sought more information about them. Same witness who was in a Naxal-related case was also used in a MCOCA or UAPA case as a witness. So we filed these RTIs and submitted it to the court to falsify their case which sadly, the earlier court had ignored.

But we are glad that High Court gave it weightage.

Media labelled these men "terrorists" and "convicted criminal" and the media that made noise back then, is silent now. How did you fight and live with this label, and how will this impact these 12 men as well?

This is true that the media created noise. From day one, the media called us Lashkar-e-Taiba's sleeper cell, ISI agents and SIMI activists and tried to make us look guilty. In jail, we used to prepare a yearly report that this is a false case against us and these are the things being done to us inside the jail and send to lawyer Shahid Azmi who used to circulate it among civil society groups and media houses. This is how we tried to make our innocence known.

In 2008, Bombay crime branch arrested more people and said that the accused are from Indian Mujahideen and it was said that they were directly involved in the blasts and the earlier set of the accused had no involvement in the case. That ATS arrested the wrong people. Then media's eyes opened a bit and they realised something is wrong in the case. 

After my acquittal, from 2015-2025, through books, films, YouTube channels and pan-India programmes, I informed the media and civil society. That those who have been jailed are innocent and today, I think Bombay HC endorsed my view.

There's a saying that 'justice delayed is justice denied.' It applies to these 12 men but also those who lost their loved ones in the blast. There's a section showing outrage as to how these 12 men were acquitted and why we didn't punish them. What do you have to say about that?

It's not just a section of the society which is talking about how these men have been acquitted but the state government and the system has reached the Supreme Court. They have filed an appeal, asking to suspend the order and to arrest, jail them again.

So for 19 years, the mistake that you had made, you want to continue on the same track? You don't want to change you track, or your ways.

You should have started a new investigation to arrest the real culprits. You should be talking about getting justice to those who died and were injured. And they should have apologised to those who have come out after 19 years. But you don't want to take the right path but under the guise of anti-Muslim and anti-minority hatred, you want to get them hanged which is very shameful.