‘Give us back last 20 years’: Son of Mumbai blasts accused, who died in jail 4 years before acquittal

On Monday, nearly two decades after his father’s arrest, the Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 men convicted in the case. This included a posthumous acquittal for Kamal Ansari, who died in jail in 2021 at the age of 50.

“The only thing I want to say is, give us back the last 20 years… Only we know what we went through during these years,” said Abdullah, who last met his father in 2017.

He said the High Court judgment came too late. “What was meant to be wrapped up by the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court in two-four years dragged on for much longer, and then it took another decade in the High Court. My father died in jail.”

According to official records, Kamal Ansari died of Covid at Nagpur Central Jail in 2021, during the height of the pandemic.

“What happened was wrong, not just to my father but also to the others whose lives were destroyed by this process. Can anyone give back those 20 years to us, or to the 11 other families that also suffered?” Abdullah said.

In July 2006, 189 people were killed and 824 injured in a series of blasts that ripped through seven Mumbai local train coaches.

Kamal Ansari had been accused of receiving arms training in Pakistan, ferrying Pakistani terrorists across the Indo-Nepal border, and helping plant explosives that detonated at Matunga station in Mumbai. However, his son said Kamal was a worker trying to make ends meet by doing odd jobs in Madhubani and nearby areas.

In 2015, a special MCOCA court sentenced Kamal Ansari and four others to death on charges of organised crime, criminal conspiracy, spreading terror and murder, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Explosives Substances Act, 1908, MCOCA, and Railways Act, 1989.

After his father’s arrest, Abdullah said that “his mother and three brothers endured severe financial hardship”. The eldest among the siblings, Abdullah now works in a private company in Delhi, as does his brother Obedullah. Another brother, Abdul, works in Darbhanga, while the youngest, Sufian, is still studying.