No room for lapses by probe agencies in terror cases

A gruesome terrorist attack rocked Mumbai on the evening of July 11, 2006. Two hundred-odd working men and women, returning home after offices closed for the day, were killed and around 800 injured. The explosives were well camouflaged and placed strategically on seven local trains. The bombs were primed to detonate around 6:30 pm during peak traffic hours. The blasts too place within a span of a few minutes. It was obvious that a terrorist organisation was involved.

A preliminary probe narrowed down the search to two terror outfits — the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM). Further investigation eliminated the IM. Jihadi terrorists have operated in Mumbai ever since the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent riots. Anger against the government can manifest itself in terrorism, just as it has happened in Northern Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka and in India too — in Punjab. Weaker entities who cannot confront the might of the State on battlefields resort to this sneaky form of low-cost war to voice their discontent.

Jihadi terrorists, like the Khalistani variety, sourced weapons and training from Pakistan. They have carried out sporadic attacks, but the greater the intensity of an attack, the higher the number of casualties. A humming city like Mumbai provides concentrated gatherings at known locations at known times.

Mumbai cops have not been in danger of being targeted by jihadis, unlike police personnel in Punjab of the 1980s and 1990s. There, uniformed men and their families lived under the constant threat of elimination. The law and ethics expect the police to capture terrorists and arraign them in courts of justice. In Punjab, that normal process of law enforcement was almost impossible to achieve. Whenever an opportunity came their way, Khalistani terrorists would put a bullet through the head or the heart of those who tried to apprehend them.

In the case of the Mumbai train blasts, investigation teams specially selected from the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the main Crime Branch by Anami Roy, the well-respected and highly capable Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, got into the act immediately. The 17 teams formed for this special task should be commended for their tenacity, patience and investigative skills. They got hold of the culprits and chargesheeted 12 of them in the six months that the law allowed. It was a Herculean task, but they performed it truly well.

The trial court, which tries cases under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was totally convinced. It gave detailed reasons for its decision in a 1,000-page judgment. The court had the advantage of seeing and judging the personalities and the character of the witnesses in person and assessing their reactions when cross-examined by the defence. The witnesses obviously passed the scrutiny of the presiding judge, who convicted the accused, handing down the death penalty to five and life imprisonment to the remaining seven. Imposing the death sentence is not an easy decision. Hence, it is rarely exercised because of the sheer length of the shadow it casts on the judge’s conscience.

The appellate court was swayed by some lapses that would have escaped the notice of the senior supervising officers. One lapse was to employ a Special Executive Magistrate, whose term of appointment had expired a few months earlier, to hold the identification parade of the accused. The second lapse was to hold the identification parade in the ATS office, which is equivalent to holding it at a police station. The third mistake, which should have been noticed by supervising IPS officers, was that some wording in the confessions of the suspects were identical, though the deputy commissioners who recorded them were different.

This last lapse may have led the Bombay High Court to suspect that the confessions were obtained under duress. But even if the court had rejected the confessions, it could have been guided by the gravity of other evidence produced, which the confessions were meant to corroborate.

Perpetrators of a heinous crime were acquitted on the basis of adverse inferences brought into focus by the lapses mentioned above. An acquittal in such cases demoralises the probe agency concerned. Far worse is the effect on public morale. Commuters lost their lives for no fault of theirs in Mumbai 19 years ago. Other law-abiding men and women were left to wonder whether they would be next and if so, when?

The Supreme Court has mercifully stayed the HC order acquitting the 12 convicts, but has not demanded that they return to jail. The CJI remarked that it was not usual to stay orders passed by high courts in appeal. That remark shows that the apex court too, is worried about the impact of the acquittal on society at large. It will delve deeper into the case after studying both judgments, that of the trial court and of the appellate court, before coming to a conclusion.

Keep your fingers crossed and hope that justice prevails. An innocent person should never be punished, but, at the same time, the guilty should not go unpunished. Courts that deliver justice always keep that adage in mind.