The July 2025 acquittal of all accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts isn’t just a legal decision it’s a haunting reminder of how the Indian state has, across political lines and over decades, systematically persecuted its Muslim citizens under the hollow pretext of fighting terror.
For too long, the state has run a cruel and calculated script: arrest, torture, demonize, convict then quietly acquit, long after lives have been destroyed. And behind this machinery are broken families, shattered dreams, and the quiet despair of a community criminalized for its very identity.
The 2006 Mumbai Blasts — Justice Delayed, Justice Denied
On July 11, 2006, a series of coordinated blasts ripped through Mumbai’s suburban trains, killing 189 people, a horrific tragedy that deserved urgent justice.
But instead of searching for truth, the Maharashtra ATS under a Congress-led government chose a shortcut. Within days, they rounded up twelve Muslim men. No investigation, no evidence just names, faces, and the burden of being Muslim.
These men were beaten, tortured, and forced into signing false confessions. They were paraded as monsters. The media called them masterminds. And the courts, swayed by spectacle and silence, handed out death and life sentences.
Nineteen years later, in 2025, the Bombay High Court laid it bare: the evidence was fabricated. The confessions were forced. The case was a fiction.
But who gives back nineteen years of a man’s life? Who repairs the broken backs, the bruised bodies, the lost childhoods of their sons and daughters?
The Political Class: From Cowardice to Complicity
Shivraj Patil, the then-Home Minister, presided over an era when anti-terror operations became a euphemism for targeting Muslims. Under his watch:
- Innocent men in Malegaon were tortured and jailed for a blast that was eventually traced back to Hindu extremists.
- A shadowy outfit, the “Indian Mujahideen,” emerged — with no proven leadership, no structure, but conveniently used as a label to imprison Muslim youth from Azamgarh to Bengaluru.
P. Chidambaram, his successor, oversaw the Batla House encounter in 2008 a deeply controversial operation where two young Muslim men were gunned down. Despite glaring inconsistencies and widespread demands for a judicial probe, he refused one. The truth was buried under claims of “national security.”
Hemant Karkare — The Officer Who Chose Truth
Amid a sea of prejudice and silence stood one man who refused to look away.
Hemant Karkare, the head of the Maharashtra ATS in 2008, dared to follow the evidence in the Malegaon blast — and that led him to Hindutva extremists, including Sadhvi Pragya and Lt. Col. Purohit.
For this, he faced a barrage of abuse from right-wing groups, was branded anti-national, and ultimately, was killed during the 26/11 attacks. But even his death raised chilling questions:
- Why did his convoy take an unusual, isolated route?
- Why were there conflicting reports about how he died?
- Why did his probe into Hindutva terror die with him?
His death wasn’t just a tragedy. It felt like a message.
The State’s Playbook: A Cycle of Injustice
For years, the process has remained disturbingly consistent:
- Arrest Muslims — sometimes teenagers, sometimes fathers of five.
- Slap draconian laws like MCOCA or UAPA.
- Torture them until they say what you need them to.
- Leak stories to the media about “cracking a major terror plot.”
- Let the trial drag on for years or decades.
- Acquit them silently once their lives are already ruined.
Meanwhile, groups openly promoting hate — like Bajrang Dal or Hindu Yuva Vahini — face little scrutiny, even when caught on camera inciting or committing violence.
From Congress to BJP — Different Names, Same Injustice
Whether under Shivraj Patil, Chidambaram, or Amit Shah, the machinery hasn’t changed — only the actors have. The outcomes remain the same: Muslims treated not as citizens, but as suspects.
Unanswered Questions That Haunt Us Still
- Who returns the stolen years of these men’s lives?
- Who holds accountable the officers who faked evidence and tortured innocents?
- Who answers for Hemant Karkare’s death — and the truth that died with him?
- How long will Muslims be punished not for crimes, but for existing?
This Is Not Justice. This Is State-Sanctioned Cruelty
When the law becomes a weapon against the weak, when every trial is trial by media, and when an entire community is condemned before any evidence is shown — we are no longer a democracy. We are a nation in moral collapse. And until we name that collapse for what it is — until we demand not just acquittals but accountability — justice will remain a word in our Constitution, not a reality on our streets.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FoEJ Media)
