Mecca Masjid Blast Flashcards
The Mecca Masjid acquittals will reinforce cynicism about the state of the justice system. Nine people were killed and 58 injured when a blast rocked Friday prayers at the Mecca Masjid on 18 May 2007.
A total of 10 people allegedly belonging to a group called Abhinav Bharat were accused of plotting and carrying out the blasts. However, only five of them —Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai and Rajendra Chowdhary— were arrested and brought to trial. These were the men who were acquitted by the court on Monday. The acquittal of five suspects in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast case is likely to reinforce public cynicism in the country about the state of the criminal justice system
Regardless of whether the acquittal was owing to the innocence of Swami Aseemanand and four others belonging to a Hindu right-wing group, or because the prosecuting agency lacked the resolve and freedom to obtain their conviction, the outcome is undoubtedly a substantial denial of justice for a crime that killed nine people and injured many others.
It also shattered the lives of dozens of Muslims who were taken into custody by the Hyderabad police in the immediate aftermath of the blast in May 2007; their arbitrary incarceration, alleged custodial torture and the protracted court hearings amounted to grave miscarriage of justice.
The prosecution case appeared to have been significantly bolstered by a confession by Aseemanand in 2010 ,but his subsequent retraction cast a shadow over its voluntary nature. However, given the details in his statement on the planning and execution of some key terror attacks between 2006 and 2008, including bomb attacks in Malegaon, on the Samjhauta Express, at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and the Ajmer Dargah, there will be inevitable questions about why the NIA failed to produce any significant evidence in the trial.
The NIA has faced charges of going soft on Hindutva groups after the regime change at the Centre in 2014, once even from a public prosecutor handling the Malegaon blast case. That 66 out of 226 witnesses turned hostile reflects poorly on the investigating agency and exposes the lack of legal safeguards to protect witnesses. The investigating agencies face a credibility crisis, and how public faith in their impartiality can be restored is something the country ought to worry about now.
Hours after acquitting all five suspects in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case in Hyderabad, the special court judge resigned on Monday.
Judge Ravinder Reddy of the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court, who cited lack of evidence for the acquittals, gave no reason for his sudden resignation.
Over the last few years, the NIA has received a lot of flak for going slow on cases that link Hindutva organisations to blasts. In an unprecedented government decision, Sharad Kumar, then NIA chief who was supposed to retire in October 2015, was given an extension to continue as the agency’s chief. Many former bureaucrats who spoke to The Wire then had said that the step was unconventional and feared that his apparent closeness to the BJP may have triggered the decisio
following the revelation by former special prosecutor Rohini Salian that a superintendent of police of the NIA asked her to go easy on the Malegaon accused. The NIA was supposed to be the agency above such controversies, and immune to interference. On the contrary, it has laid itself open to the charge of attempting to interfere with due process.
In the Mecca Masjid case, the loss of evidence has contributed significantly to the outcome. But the perception that the agency showed little initiative to plug the loopholes has done more damage. A parliamentary committee pulled it up for similar lack of energy in 2017, when it dragged its feet on a probe in the Pathankot attack.
In the present case, the phenomenon of witnesses turning hostile and the accused disowning testimony has drawn unfavourable attention. And the resignation of the judge who delivered the verdict, only two months before his retirement, is thought-provoking. Despite a fine beginning, today the NIA looks more like a new, unimproved CBI.
