Before Aseemanand,the SIMI theory

On Friday,September 8,2006,during the festival of Shab-e-Baraat,four bombs exploded at Hamidiya Masjid,Bara Kabrastan and Mushawra Chowk,each having been planted on a parked bicycle. The blasts killed 31 people and injured 312.

CATCHES

A month later,the ATS arrested Noor-ul-Huda Shamshudoha Ansari and said he was a SIMI activist and had planted one of the bombs. The others arrested were Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah alias Batterywala,Raees Ahmed,Dr Salman Farsi,Dr Faroqh Maghdumi,Mohammed Zahid alias Zahid Ali,Asif Bashir Khan alias Junaid,Mohammed Ali of Govandi,and Abrar Ahmed alias Ghulam Ahmed,who has since turned approver. A few of them,including Batterywala,were already under arrest in other cases such as the 7/11 train blasts; the ATS booked them in the current case too.

SUSPECTED ROLES

Huda,who was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,had been under the scanner for several years as he was believed to be an active SIMI member. Police said he and Ahmed planted the bomb at Bada Kabrastan.

Batterywala,who had a grocery shop in Malegaon,was then in custody for 7/11. He had allegedly taken explosives training in Pakistan,having gone there via Dubai on a tourist visa in May 2003. He spent 26 days in a camp in Bahawalpur and flew from Karachi to Kathmandu and then went to Bahraich on the UP-Nepal border,before finally reaching Malegaon.

Police said Huda had stored explosives in Batterywalas godown and a search had unearthed a substance that forensic tests later established as RDX.

On November 27,2006,the ATS claimed it had cracked the case with eight arrests,all of those held being former SIMI members. It said it was looking for eight others. The ninth arrest,which happened later,was that of Abrar Ahmed,who was subsequently made an approver. Among the wanted suspects,the ATS said,were two Pakistanis. One of them,Muzammil,had allegedly come to India in the third week of July 2006 and helped put together the improvised explosive devices.

Zahid Ali allegedly planted the bomb at Mushawra Chowk. After 7/11,Mohammed Ali allegedly supplied Batterywala15 kg to 20 kg of RDX,of which about 1.5 kg was used in Malegaon.

PLOT

The first meeting of the suspects allegedly took place on May 8,2006,at Noor-ul-Hudas wedding in Malegaon. Later,they and some other SIMI members allegedly plotted the blasts. The ATS claimed to have an independent witness who saw the bombs being made.

THE CASE

On December 21,2006,the ATS filed the chargesheet. It said the nine accused were active SIMI members who had hatched and executed the conspiracy with the help of two Pakistanis to trigger communal riots.

The Supreme Court stayed the trial in February 2008 after the defence challenged some provisions of MCOCA,which had been applied. In April last year,the Supreme Court vacated the stay but the trial is yet to resume.

ATS vs CBI

The day the chargesheet was filed,the state government handed over the case to CBI,apparently because of pressure from Muslim groups and political parties.

The evidence is out there, said lawyer Mobin Mujid Ahmed,representing the families. The CBI is yet to file new charges as this (new) evidence negates the claims of the ATS. The central agency did come to Malegaon on three occasions to meet witnesses who had given statement to the ATS. They were primarily here to check the ATS version.

COUNTER-CLAIMS

Lawyer Ahmed said the families have been claiming that sketches of suspects made by ATS during the early days of the probe did not really match the looks of the nine arrested. Zahid was reportedly giving a sermon in a village at the time of the blast and a signed petition by the villagers apparently testifies to this. We are now waiting for the states reaction to the new confession. For families of the accused,lives changed after that blast, Ahmed said.

The defence claims that the ATS has hardly any material evidence besides a forensic report of the earth mixed with RDX found at Batterywalas godown.

Asif Bashir Khans lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan adds the case will now need to be looked into afresh. Asif was named in the 7/11 case and he is the only one who has not gone for a confession. The ATS had used tactics to get everyone to confess and now all this will need probing.

WHAT NOW

We have met several officials in the last four-and-a-half years. Now,we have a new confession and we will meet as many officials till it is proved that our boys are innocent. In the last few years,each family has painstakingly put together evidence that proves these men were not involved in this blast, says Dr Faroqh Maghdumis father Iqbal.

Look at Faroqhs case. He was in a dispensary the day before,attending to 45 patients who are all on the records of the clinic. They are even willing to testify. But the ATS chargesheet alleges that Faroqh was in a secret location planning the blast.