Stolen Lives, Buried Truths

What happens when the police chase the illusion of justice, not the truth?

- Pragya Singh

On July 11, 2006, seven bombs tore through Mumbai’s local trains, killing 189 people and injuring over 800.

In the months that followed, the police announced that it had cracked the case. Twelve of the arrested men were tried and later convicted. Five were sentenced to death.

Last week—almost two decades later—the Bombay High Court acquitted them all. The judges ruled that the evidence against them was unreliable, contradictory and, in many cases, fabricated. At that moment, justice stood exposed—not because it had been delivered, but because it had long been denied.

What happens when law enforcement responds not to facts, but public opinion, the so-called ‘collective conscience’, as the police see it? What happens when the police attempt to satisfy the demand for retribution, rather than rely on evidence? The answer is stolen lives, buried truths and perpetrators walking free.

“The conviction of an innocent man is an insurance policy for the guilty person that now he will never be caught,” says advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhry, who along with his colleagues, Payoshi Roy and Siddhartha Sharma, represented some of the men acquitted by the court in the Mumbai blasts case. “The police closed this case not because they found the true culprits, but because they didn’t want to admit they didn’t know who the perpetrators were.”

In an ordinary murder case, a high court can—often does—acquit an accused if the evidence doesn’t hold up. It might be based on benefit of doubt or reassessment of witness credibility or technical reasons. But in terrorism cases, an acquittal wouldn't just hinge on doubt: it would require moral and legal conviction in the unquestioned innocence of the accused.