India will set up a special court for the July Mumbai train bombings to speed up justice for families of the nearly 200 people killed in the attacks, officials said on Wednesday.
MUMBAI: India will set up a special court for the July Mumbai train bombings to speed up justice for families of the nearly 200 people killed in the attacks, officials said on Wednesday.
Police have accused 19 people, mostly Muslims, in the July 11 attacks on crowded commuter trains and platforms. Charges against them will be filed by the end of November, police said.
The criminal justice system, burdened by millions of cases and a shortage of judges, typically takes years to grind through trials.
Special courts are often established for high-profile cases in an attempt to speed things up, but even then verdicts often take time -- a special anti-terrorism court is only now handing out verdicts for 1993 bombings in Mumbai that killed 257 people.
“The accused in the July 11 blast case will be tried in a special court so that justice is done fast,” KP Raghuvanshi, Mumbai's anti-terrorism squad chief, said.
At least 186 people, including one of the suspected bombers, were killed in the attacks.
Legal experts say the trial could be controversial as some of the accused, whom police said had confessed to links with militant groups, later claimed that they had been tortured into making statements.
The Union Law Ministry will formally approve the special court as soon as the police are ready to file final charges, a government official said.
India has accused Pakistan's military spy agency of plotting the Mumbai blasts and militant group Lashkar-e-Tayiba of executing them with the help of disaffected Indian Muslims.
Pakistan and Lashkar have denied any links to the blasts.
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