What the 7/11 verdict tells us about our probes

The judgement should trigger reviews of police procedures and reform that ensures deterrence against violators

Seven serial blasts ripped through Mumbai’s suburban train network between 6.23 and 6.29 pm on July 11, 2006, killing 187 people and injuring 824. The ghastly crime against a particularly soft target, the local trains that ferry more than six million ordinary people a day in India’s financial centre along the city’s north-south corridor, shook the city and the nation. But a shocker of a different kind came last week, 19 years on, when a division bench of the Bombay High Court ruled that the case in effect remains unsolved and that the “true threat remains at large”. The High Court acquitted all 12 accused in the case, including five who had been awarded the death penalty by the trial court, and recorded strong findings against the police for grossly misinvestigating the case.

Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak began the 667-page judgement with the following words: “Punishing the actual perpetrator of a crime is a concrete and essential step toward curbing criminal activities, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring the safety and security of citizens. But creating a false appearance of having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution. This deceptive closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society while, in reality, the true threat remains at large.”

In effect, the Justices recorded that the culprits still roam free. We do not know who committed the crime. Some innocents were tortured and presented as the killers, but the elaborate story did not stand scrutiny. The court’s scathing remarks not only brought shame and ignominy for the investigating agencies but also raised important questions that go beyond the quality of investigations, or the capacity of the agencies and their leadership to get to the bottom of such a well-coordinated and heinous crime. These remarks raised questions on the integrity of the entire investigating network that used the heavy hand of the law and pressed charges that were quite convincingly dismissed. While it is known that police systems are anything but perfect, that the niceties of the law and due process do get stretched, particularly in sensitive investigations, wholesale violations of the kind recorded by the High Court mark this case as a new low for the State and its agencies.

The quite obvious response of the State has been to move the Supreme Court in appeal, with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asking for a stay of the judgement to the extent that it would not serve as precedent before trial courts currently hearing other cases prosecuted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. In their order, Justices M M Sundresh and N K Singh of the Supreme Court noted that “there is no question of imprisoning” those already released after the acquittals. However, the judges said they were inclined to hold that the impugned judgement shall not be treated as a precedent and there shall be a stay on the operation of the judgement.

It’ll be some time before the Supreme Court weighs in on the matter. Meanwhile, there is ample material in the High Court judgement to act as an eye-opener; it must trigger some internal soul-searching among the top brass of the administrative machinery and lead to some review of operations if there is to be any public confidence that terrorists will be brought to book. The case shows that outdated modes of investigation, including the use of torture, do not help solve crime but are used to push a preferred line of inquiry because the real culprits are out of reach.

“Barbaric and inhuman”

The court’s words speak out loud. At one place, the Justices note: This detailed account of torture (narrated in the previous para of the judgement) is difficult to read and imagine the barbarity of police, and if it is accepted as true and correct, it surely depicts inhuman, barbaric, and drastic methods applied by police to extort confession from accused 1. The nature of torture mentioned in the complaint will shock the conscience of anyone. The narration shows that the incidents stated are not vague and general but with details, namely the dates, place, the names of the officers, and the nature of torture.”

This account of “barbaric and inhuman torture”, the court ruled, was corroborated by medical evidence. In other places, the court found that confessional statements did not reveal crucial aspects of the crime like: (1) in what containers the bombs were packed, (2) how were the bombs detonated, (3) what was the device used to trigger the bombs, (4) how the device got accurately activated, and most importantly, (5) who planted the bombs that exploded at Mahim and Bandra stations.

The larger picture is of a failing administration, rapidly sliding down a very slippery slope in the absence of robust internal and external scrutiny, blind support in the name of fighting terrorism while the real terrorists go scot-free, and a refusal to accept and correct mistakes. Worse, this is a secular fall. We cannot blame a particular party or government – all are a party to this collapse. Since the blasts, Maharashtra has had a total of 10 governments under various parties and dispensations, including two bouts of central rule.

In the end, shortcuts don’t work. They don’t serve the cause of justice. They are a disservice to the nation. This message must be sent down to the police force, right from the very top. It must be accompanied by strong action against those who violate due process. Just as some sections have raised a voice against the acquittals, there has to be a voice against those who messed up the investigation. We must work to find the real culprits, and we must punish all those who violated norms and have brought us to this pass.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR; Syndicate: The Billion Press)