Ten months after being arrested as a ‘terrorist’ for his alleged role in the 2002 bomb blast case in Mumbai, a techie from Hyderabad has been cleared of all charges. The Mumbai police have admitted to the special court here that they found ‘no evidence’ against him. Much before his arrest, for 10 years, the police had been claiming that Taj-ul Kazi Siddiqui, 40, was the main conspirator of the 2002 Ghatkopar bus blast case. In a charge sheet filed in 2003, he was named one of the 29 accused and was shown as wanted. On November, 2012, a team of Mumbai police arrested him from Hyderabad and booked him under stringent sections of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and various sections of the Indian Penal Code. He was later released on bail in April, 2013.
Settled in Hyderabad for almost a decade, Mr. Siddiqui was a senior employee with HCL. He was immediately terminated from his job, for being ‘allegedly’ involved in ‘terror’ activities. For 10 months, his family repeatedly claimed that he was innocent.
On August 1, Mumbai police informed the special POTA court that they found ‘no evidence’ against Mr. Siddiqui. “He was not found involved in the case after investigation of related papers. After studying the mirror image of his laptop’s hard disk, no evidence of his involvement in the case or objectionable matter was found,” said the application submitted by the police. It also said that his e-mail accounts were checked and no evidence linking him to the blast case was found.
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