Mumbai, Jul 24 (PTI) BJP leader Kirit Somaiya on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court’s stay on the Bombay High Court verdict acquitting all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bomb blasts case, and said all the accused should be hanged to death.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said the state government will put a strong case in the Supreme Court and asserted the accused will be punished.
The Supreme Court while staying HC order, however, said there was no question of bringing the 12 back to prison and emphasised that the high court judgement shall not be treated as a precedent.
The HC on Monday acquitted all the 12 accused, saying the prosecution utterly failed to prove the case and it was “hard to believe the accused committed the crime”.
More than 180 persons were killed in the seven train blasts.
The Maharashtra government has appealed in the Supreme Court against the HC’s judgment.
Former BJP MP Somaiya in a statement said, “I welcome the Supreme Court stay on the HC verdict acquitting all the accused. All of them should be hanged. I am sure the Maharashtra government will put its case strongly in the apex court and all the accused will be hanged.” Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said all these years, successive governments have tried their best to put up a strong case.
“Now after the HC verdict, the chief minister said the government will move the Supreme Court and put up the case again hiring good lawyers. The accused will be punished,” he said.
The Maharashtra government has assailed the Bombay HC judgment acquitting all 12 convicts in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case in the Supreme Court on grounds, including that the recovery of RDX from an accused, was disbelieved on a “hyper-technical ground” that the seized explosives were not sealed with a lac seal.
The state government, in its appeal, has raised several serious objections to the high court’s order of acquittal.
The plea has asserted that due procedural safeguards under Section 23(2) of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were observed, including proper sanctioning by senior officers like prosecution witness (PW) no. 185 Anami Roy.
It said the high court overlooked the validity of these approvals despite no substantial contradiction in the prosecution’s evidence.
More than 180 persons were killed and several others injured when seven blasts ripped through Mumbai local trains at various locations on the western line on July 11, 2006.
The high court verdict came as a major embarrassment to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which probed the case.
The agency claimed the accused were members of the banned outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and hatched the conspiracy with Pakistani members of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). PTI MR GK
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