GULZAR WANI ACQUITTED IN SABARMATI CASE
: A court in UP’s Barabanki district on Saturday acquitted former Aligarh Muslim University research scholar and alleged Hizbul Mujahideen operative Gulzar Ahmed Wani of terror charges in Sabarmati Express blast case of 2000. Wani, 28 at the time of arrest, was pursuing his PhD in AMU’s Arabic department.
NEW DELHI : A court in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district acquitted former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) research scholar and suspected Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) operative Gulzar Ahmed Wani on Saturday of all charges in the 2000 Sabarmati Express blast case.
The court also acquitted co-accused Abdul Mobin, who has been on bail since 2008. “The court of additional sessions judge MA Khan acquitted Wani and co-accused Mubin of all the charges due to lack of evidence,” Prabhat Singh, Wani’s counsel said.
Nine people had died and over a dozen were injured after a bomb exploded on the Sabarmati Express in Barabanki district on August 14, 2000. Wani, who was pursuing his PhD in AMU’s Arabic department, was arrested from New Delhi on July 31, 2001, and named as an accused in the case. He was 28 years old.
A resident of Pattan in Baramulla district of north Kashmir, Wani, has been in jail since then. After Saturday’s verdict, Wani would be a free man after languishing behind bars for 16 years. His family, the counsel said, was in Lucknow to complete his release formalities from the jail.
Wani was also accused of being a conspirator in 10 other cases of explosions and slapped with 14 FIRs in Delhi, Maharashtra and UP prior to 2000. But he was acquitted in all other cases.
On April 25 this year, the Supreme Court termed Wani’s custody spanning over 16 years without bail as “shame”. “He has been acquitted in 10 out of the 11 cases but still you want him to be in jail without bail,” a bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud told the counsel for UP government, who opposed Wani’s bail.
Wani was convicted for 10 years on the charges of allegedly carrying explosives to trigger a blast in Delhi. But, Singh said, his sentence was suspended and that it was one of the longest jail terms for a person before being acquitted in all cases. The only pending case against him was the Sabarmati Express train blast case. “He would have been released on bail on November 1, 2017, as per Supreme Court’s April 25 order for the prosecution could not gather the evidence [against him],” Singh said.