The Mumbai Police heaved a sigh of relief on Friday after the Special MCOCA Court validated their investigation and convicted >12 of the 13 arrested accused in the case as the investigation had its own share of controversies and conflicting versions.
The investigation headed by the then Anti-Terrorism Squad chief, K.P. Raghuvanshi, and supervised by the then Mumbai Police Commissioner, Anami Roy, followed the line that the accused bought pressure cookers and packed RDX and ammonium nitrate into them to intensify the impact of the explosions. Questions were raised on how did they manage to carry pressure cookers packed with explosives inside the Virar and Borivali Fast locals — arguably two of the most crowded trains at the peak hour of 6.30 p.m. in Mumbai.
Also see: >All you need to know about the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts | >Mumbai train blasts: In pictures
However, by the time the ATS filed the charge sheet, the initial “pressure cooker” theory was changed to “home utensils”. However, the prosecution maintained that though pressure cooker bombs were used in the conspiracy, the reference was changed as the confessional statements by the accused did not specifically mention them, and could have harmed the prosecution’s case.
The presence of >some accused in the train blasts case and two other cases was another controversial aspect of the investigations.
In scale, the >2006 train bombings was behind only the 1993 serial blasts and the 26/11 terror attacks.
In September 2008, the Crime Branch, then headed by Rakesh Maria, had busted a 21-member Indian Mujahideen module involved in a series of terror attacks across the country.
It emerged during the investigations that some of the Indian Mujahideen operatives had masqueraded as “Pakistanis” and were part of the “buddy pairs” which carried out the 2006 train bombings. This contradicted the ATS claim that the train bombings were carried out by SIMI activists with active support from Pakistan-based Lashkar-E-Taiba.
