7/11 Mumbai train blasts case: Judgement day after nine years
The fate of 13 accused will be decided on Friday as the special MCOCA court in Mumbai is set to pronounce the verdict in the 2006 serial bombings on Mumbai’s local trains.
Two of the accused — Faisal Sheikh and Asif Khan Bashir Khan alias Junaid — have been identified by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad as the main conspirators of the attacks.
Faisal, who planted a bomb which went off at Jogeshwari station, is accused of working for Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Pakistani commander-in-chief Azam Cheema, an absconding accused and also among the key conspirators in the incident.
Co-conspirator Junaid allegedly procured bags, utensils, ammonium nitrate and detonators.
As per the prosecution’s case, the accused persons were activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). They held several conspiratorial meetings at Faisal’s house in Bandra and at another accused Sajid’s house in Mira Road, where they decided to target local trains as they were crowded and security was not as tight as for the other sites they had surveyed.
On the day of the attacks, they travelled in different taxis to Churchgate with seven bags of explosives, kept at Faisal’s house, and planted them on various trains.
Starting 6.24 p.m. on July 11, 2006, seven blasts ripped through the first class compartments of the trains at Matunga, Mahim, Bandra, Jogeshwari, Borivali and Mira Road stations.
Many of the accused received arms training in Pakistan, housed Pakistani terrorists and helped them cross over to India via the India-Nepal and India-Bangladesh borders, according to the ATS.
The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested five alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives, including Sajid Sheikh, in connection with the bombings, bringing forth a possible IM hand in the blasts and putting a question mark on the ATS probe. The ATS later discarded IM’s role and Sajid, who confessed, was declared hostile.
The call data records of some accused contest investigators’ claims about their locations.
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Source:Thehindu
7-11 Mumbai Train Blasts
