Mumbai train blast 2006: Court acquits five Muslim men

Mumbai, Feb 5:  A local esplanade court in Mumbai acquitted five persons who were arrested soon after serial blasts in Mumbai’s local trains. The police had arrested them for being members of banned organisation SIMI and indulging in unlawful activities, however the police could not prove charges against them.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Mahesh R. Natu held that the crime branch failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted Irfan Sayed, Najeeb Bakkali, Firoz Ghaswala, Mohammed Ali Cheepa and Imran Ansari.

Unit 11 of detection crime branch in Mumbai had arrested all these accused after a police officer had received a tip off that Irfan was a member of SIMI and he was indulging in anti-social activities. The police kept a watch for sometime and arrested these five persons.

On the other hand, defence lawyers Ishrat Ali Khan, Tahwar Khan Pathan, Jamal Khan, Styaram Gaud and Aftab Qureshi claimed that the police falsely implicated the accused and allegedly planted articles that were shown to have been seized from the accused.

According to advocate Pathan, the major problem with this case was that police obtained faulty sanction to impose UAPA. The defence pointed out that the articles seized from the accused were not sealed and hence were not acceptable as evidence in the court of law.

After hearing both the sides the court acquitted all the five accused.