11/7 Mumbai train bombings: MCOCA court had rejected defence’s claims of custodial torture & IM hand | India News

11/7 Mumbai train bombings

MUMBAI: In a 1,839-page judgment, now overturned by Bombay HC, the particular MCOCA court in 2015 had rejected the defence’s declare that Indian Mujahideen (IM) was liable for the 11/7 Mumbai train bombings.On Sept 30, 2015, 5 alleged bomb planters had been sentenced to demise and 7 others handed life sentences. Special choose Yatin Shinde, since deceased, had stated that police officers who initially entertained this concept, significantly after the “confession” of alleged IM member Sadiq Shaikh, “fell prey to the tactics or strategy of terrorist organisations to confuse the investigating agency”. The choose tried to dismantle the defence’s argument, mentioning that the alleged modus operandi of IM — sending emails earlier than blasts and claiming accountability — was not noticed within the train assaults.The choose refuted defence arguments that the convicts had been merely “foot soldiers” performing on the behest of mastermind Azam Cheema. The choose noticed, “The 12 are not foot soldiers. Though the idea of the present crime generated from across the border, they formed an independent organised crime syndicate on the basis of their background of being members and activists of banned organisation SIMI. They did spadework and groundwork using their brains.”The eleven confession statements, now deemed inadmissible by HC, discovered point out in over 200 pages of the 2015 judgment. The choose had rejected claims of torture and ill-treatment made by a number of accused. The choose stated allegations of “inhuman and unbearable” torture by ATS had been unsubstantiated by the out there proof. “It is unacceptable and impossible that the accused, who were duly represented by their advocates and who had been meeting their family members, did not complain even on a single occasion to magistrates,” the choose stated.The choose had awarded the demise sentence to 5 convicts, figuring out them as essentially the most culpable because of their direct function in planting the bombs. “The accused thought that they can outsmart the intelligence and investigating agencies and therefore developed new stories every time and adopted various tactics. I am, therefore, constrained to hold that…deserve only death penalty and nothing less than that,” the choose had stated.While all 12 had been discovered responsible of offences punishable by demise, the choose deemed it unjustifiable to impose the utmost penalty on seven, who had been sentenced to life in jail. “One cannot say with certainty that the remaining seven accused would have taken the last step of pulling the trigger — planting the bomb — or would have backed out,” the choose acknowledged.The choose emphasised that the choice of sentencing the 5 bomb planters to life imprisonment was dominated out by “the simple fact of the massacre of human beings”.“These are not simple murders and this is not a simple murder case. It was mindless, cold-blooded and wanton killing of innocent, defenceless and unsuspecting persons,” the choose asserted. famous that the prosecution rightly described the accused as “merchants of death”.Rubbishing the defence, the court held it was lower than it to resolve whether or not an individual acted in line with faith or not. “It is a question in these modern days as to how many Muslims, or for that matter Hindus or persons of any religion, follow their religion scrupulously. If they would have followed religion scrupulously, there would not have been crimes of murder, rape and blasts, etc.”