MUMBAI, 20 December 2007 — The trial concerning the July 2006 deadly serial train blasts that ripped through seven first-class compartments of suburban trains at seven railway stations leaving more than 200 people dead began Tuesday amid high drama by the accused who refused to accept the courts’ jurisdiction.
The 13 accused produced in the special Maharashtra Control of Organized Criminal Act court headed by Judge M.R. Bhatkar refused to be cross-examined. They carried handwritten notes that read, “We have no faith in Bhatkar’s court.” The accused disrupted the proceedings of the court when Inspector Nagesh Baburao Dhone and other witnesses were in the process of being examined.
The accused who appeared in the court included Kamal Ahmed Mohammed Vakil Ansari, Dr. Tanvir Ahmed, Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Ataur Rehman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, Mohammed Majid Mohammed Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Abdul Wahiuddin Mohammed Shaikh, Muzammil Ataur Rehman Shaikh, Zamir Ahmed Latifur Rehman Shaikh and Asif Bashir Khan.
Eleven others are suspected to be hiding along the Indo-Pak border.
Accused Kamal Ansari appealed to the court to stop the proceedings saying the Bombay High Court has yet to rule on a review petition filed for transfer of the trial from Bhatkar’s court.
Special public prosecutor Raja Thakre opposed the plea saying Justice Deshpande, while postponing the hearing of the petition to January 2008, had ordered that “the pending applications will not impede the ongoing trial.”
After hearing the two sides, the judge said that the high court had not ordered a stay in the hearing, and dismissed the application of the accused. Thereafter, Dr. Tanvir Ahmed and Asif Bashir Khan, two of the accused, requested the court to appoint their defense lawyers, which was accepted.
As the trial started, several relatives of the blast victims demanded harsh punishment for the accused. The State Director General of Police (Housing) Anami Narayan Roy, who was Mumbai police commissioner at the time of the blasts, said police had done an excellent job in probing the blasts.
Roy said several bids were made in the past to delay the trial but the attempts were thwarted. Asked why only 13 low-profile terrorists were arrested while the masterminds behind the blasts were still at large, Roy said the police could only arrest those in India while the masterminds living abroad are beyond the reach of the police and existing extradition treaties are inadequate to bring them back.
However, senior retired police officers rejected Roy’s claims and said that the entire police force is in bad shape. They said the blasts took place within the jurisdiction of the railway police and not Mumbai police.
The case was investigated by the Anti-Terrorist Squad, which is under the direct control of the State Director General of Police P.S. Pasricha, so how does the Mumbai police commissioner come into picture, they asked.
They said it was ridiculous that instead of the railway police investigating the crime in their jurisdiction, the ATS was dragged in, and when the Mumbai police had nothing to do with the railway police’s jurisdiction or the ATS, the city police chief is drawn into the picture for no reason, the officers said.
