Just three hours to blast city, but justice takes forever

As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. One year after the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, which left 57 dead and more than 200 injured, the families of victims say that the police investigation in the related cases and the court procedure have been advancing at a snail’s pace.

With just four cases sent to trial till date, Surendra Kumar Bhagora, who lost his 23-year-old son Ketan in the blasts, said that though he had faith in the judiciary, the court procedure was exceedingly slow.

Ketan, an engineering student, had gone to the civil hospital at Asarva to help the blast victims brought there. Bhagora, who had then been at the native village in Sabarkantha, said he had spoken with his son just before the blast at the trauma centre, but the latter’s mobile phone had developed a technical snag. Half an hour later, he came to know from the television of another blast at the hospital.

Lalita Goswami, who lost her son Chandan in the civil hospital blasts, said that with the slow pace of investigation and lengthy court procedure, it will take years for the guilty to be convicted. “I lost my only son. Nothing can bring him back,” she said.

Twenty chargesheets and 46 supplementary chargesheets have been filed in connection with the blasts at the civil hospital, LG hospital at Maninagar, and in Ramol and Khadia. The chargesheet in the civil and LG hospitals blast case names 26 as accused. The police have arrested 57, while 39 people have been declared as absconding.

At the current pace of investigation and court procedure, it will be another three to six months before the trials begin. However, special public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt said that the trials will begin by September as chargesheets have been filed in most of the cases. The names included in the chargesheets include those of Abu Bashir, who has been accused of masterminding the blasts; Zahid Sheikh, Imran Sheikh, Sajid Mansuri, Iqbal Sheikh, Shamshuddin Sheikh, Gayasuddin Ansari, Arif Kagzi, Usman Agarbattiwala and Younis Mansuri, accused of playing key roles.

The crime branch has also chargesheeted Raziuddin Nasir, who was brought from Belgaum by the Gujarat police; Javed Sheikh; Naved Kadri; Abbas Sameja; Aiyaz Sayyed; Salim Sipahi; and Umar Kabira. Atiq-ur-Rehman, Mehdi Hassan and Imran Shaikh, who were arrested from Rajasthan, have also been named in the chargesheet. Others named in the chargesheet are Safdar Nagori, leader of Students’ Islamic Movement of India; Ameel Pervez; Shibly Peedical; Kamruddin Nagori; Mohammed Hafiz; and Mohammed Ali from Madhya Pradesh.

The chargesheet speaks of three main motives behind the blasts - avenging the post-Godhra riots, spread of Islamic rule in India and avenging the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The chargesheet was prepared relying primarily on circumstantial evidence such as the gas cylinders supplied for the blasts, cars used for the bombs, FSL reports and other corroborative evidence. The accused have been booked under various provisions of the IPC, Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act and Information Technology Act. The chargesheet named Bashir as the main accused in the LG hospital blasts and Sajid Mansuri as the main accused in the civil hospital blasts.