Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Court rejects 7/11 convict’s plea for re-investigation
MUMBAI: The special MCOCA court on Wednesday rejected the plea filed by Ehtesham Siddiqui, a death row convict in the 7/11 train bombings in Mumbai, seeking further investigation in the serial blasts case.
The court said it was the prerogative of the investigating officer to seek further investigation if required and not the accused. “It is for the investigating officer to go through the relevant evidence which came before him for filing supplementary chargesheet against the wanted accused. It is for the prosecution or investigating officer to seek for further investigation and therefore, the present application is devoid of merits and needs to be rejected,” said special judge AM Patil while rejecting Siddiqui’s plea filed in July this year.
Seven powerful blasts had ripped through the first-class compartments of local trains on the western line in Mumbai in 11 minutes on the evening of July 11, 2006. The blasts took place during rush-hour between 6:24 and 6:35 pm, killing 188 persons and injuring 800 others.
Siddiqui, a member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), was said to be a core conspirator. As per the prosecution case, Siddiqui had planted one of the bombs, purportedly assembled by some
Pakistani nationals, in a train which exploded at Mira Road.
Siddiqui is lodged at Nagpur central prison, from where he had written a letter to the designated MCOCA court in July this year, stating that the prosecution claimed that one of the accused in the bombings case, Abdul Razzak, had in 2006 brought three Pakistani nationals to assemble the bombs through the Kutchh border. Siddiqui said, Razzak, who died by suicide in October 2012 in Hyderabad, was behind bars in 2006, as he was arrested for a local crime in 2005 and was granted bail only in 2007. As Razzak was in custody, it would be wrong to say that he brought three Pakistanis to the city in May 2006, Siddiqui claimed.
The ATS added that during the trial, 192 prosecution witnesses and 51 defense witnesses were examined and the applicant himself had testified as a defense witness.