Author: Mateen Hafeez
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 12, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mumbai-cops-goof-up-711-accused-acquitted/articleshow/4511603.cms
In a major setback to the Mumbai crime branch,
the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCCOA) court on Monday discharged
Indian Mujahideen (IM) co-founder Sadiq Shaikh in the July 11, 2006, serial
train blasts case.
TOI had first reported ATS's plan to file
an application in the court for Sadiq's discharge after forensic tests said
he was not lying about his non-involvement in the blasts.
Sadiq (31), an electrician from Trombay, was
arrested by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) on February 20. He was booked in
the 7/11 train bombing, which killed 188 people. The ATS filed an application
in the court and said it had not found evidence to believe that IM was responsible
for the train blasts. The move will, however, leave the city crime branch,
which has been claiming otherwise, red-faced.
Judge Y D Shinde discharged Sadiq and informed
him about the status of the case. "We thoroughly questioned Sadiq in
connection with the train blasts and even subjected him to polygraph and brain
mapping tests. Nowhere was it established that he had any links with the train
blasts, so we filed an application in the court asking it to discharge him
from this case,'' said ATS additional commissioner of police, Param Bir Singh.
Sadiq was first arrested by the crime branch
in September 2008 along with 20 other suspected operatives of IM for sending
terror emails before and after the Ahmedabad and New Delhi blasts. The crime
branch claimed that during interrogation Sadiq revealed his involvement in
the train blasts. This came as a shock to the ATS since it had arrested 13
suspected Students Islamic Movement of India members in the case and filed
a 11,000-page chargesheet against them in 2006.
The crime branch had claimed that the bombs
for the blasts were manufactured in a Sewree flat and the RDX was procured
by an IM operative, Riyaz Bhatkal. However, the ATS is sticking to its old
theory that the bombs were assembled at a 100 sq ft flat in Govandi and not
at Sewree. Moreover, the ATS said that the RDX was procured by a Pakistani,
Ehsanullah, who had illegally entered India along with 10 other Pakistani
accomplices.
