'Miserably failed to prove charges': HC acquits 1996 blast case convict

The Allahabad high court recently setaside the conviction of one Mohammad Ilyas in the 1996 Modi Nagar-Ghaziabad bus bomb blast case, observing that the prosecution miserably failed to prove charges and that his alleged confessional statement recorded by the police was inadmissible in view of the bar under Section 25 of the Evidence Act.

- HT Correspondent

At least 16 people died and 48 were injured in the blast ina Roorkee-bound UP Roadways bus on April 27,1996, near Modi Nagar. In 2013, a Ghaziabad court awarded life term to Abdul Mateen, a Pakistani national, and Ilyas; and acquitted another accused, Taslim. Justices Siddharth and Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra, in a 51-page order on November 10, allowed the criminal appeal filed by Ilyas and acquitted him. “The prosecution has miserably failed to prove the charges that the appellant conspired to plant a bomb along with co-