'Sad day for everyone': 7/11 survivors disappointed with post-acquittal ruling

Mumbai: As the Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all the 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bomb blasts, survivors of the horrific terror attack reacted with deep shock and disappointment as their wait for closure and justice got longer, 19 years on.

Chirag Chauhan, a blasts survivor who is now wheelchair-bound and a practising CA, expressed dismay over the acquittal ruling and rued "Justice got killed".

Hours after the verdict, Chauhan (40) took to social media platform X to express his deep disappointment over the verdict and maintained "the law of the land failed today".

Nineteen years after seven blasts on suburban trains in Mumbai killed more than 180 persons and injured several other, a special HC bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak 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".

"Today is a very sad day for everyone! Justice got killed!! No one got punished for the irreparable damage and pain suffered by thousands of families!!," Chauhan said in a post on X.

Highlighting that he has forgiven the terrorists responsible for the blasts and moved on with his life, the chartered accountant (CA), however, noted justice could have been served in the case had Narendra Modi been Prime Minister then.

"I wish we had Shri Narendra Modi at the time as our PM, we could have got justice like in the recent terror attack (an apparent reference to Pahalgam carnage). Bharat went inside Pakistan and gave a befitting reply to terrorists & all perpetrators!" he stated in an oblique refence to 'Operation Sindoor' conducted by armed forces in May.

As a 21-year-old chartered accountancy student, Chauhan was travelling on a local train on the Western Railway when it was rocked by a powerful bomb blast between Khar and Santacruz stations on July 11, 2006.

He was paralysed due to spinal cord injury suffered in the terror attack and is now uses a wheelchair.

On the 19th anniversary of the blasts on July 11, 2025, Chauhan had written a long post on the social media platform in which he had elaborated how his life changed forever after the injury he suffered in the terror attack.

"I cleared the CA final in 2009, just three years after the blasts. Initially I could only sit for a few hours, but after physiotherapy I managed to sit for 8 hrs, then 12 hrs, and now I can sit for 16 hrs," he had written in the post.

Another survivor, Mahendra Pitale (52), a Western Railway employee, opined that he does not agree with the verdict that has come 19 years after the terror attack.

Only the police machinery and courts know what exactly happened, he stated.

Pitale, who was 33 years old when he lost his left hand when a powerful bomb exploded in the train he was travelling on at suburban Jogeshwari, questioned who was responsible for the dastardly act if those tried have been let off.

"If those who have been acquitted are not the real culprits behind the serial blasts, then who are the real culprits and when will they be punished or will it also take 19 more years?" he asked with a sense of resignation.

Gardening contractor Harish Powar (44), another survivor of the blasts, called the verdict shocking.

"The accused got justice, not the victims, who lost their lives or limbs in the blasts," he said.

Powar, a resident of Virar in Palghar district who travels daily to south Mumbai on suburban locals for operating his horticulture business, was injured when a bomb blast ripped through the first-class coach of the train he was travelling on.

"The blast scene keeps cropping up in front of my eyes even after almost two decades. I remember bodies lying inside the compartment with blood splattered on its walls. Some people were writhing in pain, while a few others were lying motionless," Powar told PTI.

Dismayed by the verdict, Powar sarcastically said, "If the accused persons are acquitted, then getting out of our houses for work to feed our family is a crime...and we are the culprits".

Nineteen years after seven train blasts here killed more than 180 persons, the Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all 12 accused, saying the prosecution “utterly failed” to prove the case and it was "hard to believe the accused committed the crime".

In a damning indictment of the prosecution’s case, the high court has declared all confessional statements of the accused inadmissible, suggesting "copying”.

Further eroding the credibility of the confessions, the court said the accused had successfully established that torture was inflicted upon them to extort these confessional statements.

The bench noted the prosecution has failed to even bring on record the type of bombs used in the crime and that the evidence relied on by it was not conclusive to convict the accused.