The Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 accused in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case from 2006, when bombs ripped through the Western Suburban Railway, killing 189 people and injuring 800 others. A special bench of Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak observed that the prosecution “utterly failed” to prove their case. Their convictions were quashed and set aside. More embarrassingly for the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, the court was scathing about the lapses in the investigation, noting, “Creating a false appearance of having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution.”
To put a time frame in perspective, one of the falsely accused in the Mumbai train blasts case was arrested when his daughter was six months old. He’s been released when she’s in college. Meanwhile, the actual perpetrators of this terrorist act roam free. The families of the victims must endure the frustration of being denied closure, yet again. This was a high-profile case with intense media scrutiny and public pressure. One naively believes the authorities would leave nothing to chance while zeroing in on the culprits. Which is what makes it so much more frightening that despite all that focussed attention, the wrong people were incarcerated. It sends shivers down one’s spine to think how justice is arrived at in less important matters in India — and how many people may be languishing in jails for crimes they didn’t commit.
Criminal justice failures capture our imaginations because they speak so profoundly to the human condition, to fundamental questions about punishment, ambition and ethics. Throughout history, in mythology and in reality, there have been people who couldn’t get a fair trial. Think of Joseph in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New. Believers make sense of a bad hand by dividing the Universe into halves of heaven and hell. Contemplating karmic retribution and ancient Biblical proverbs, that declare a day of Judgment when an all-knowing God will prevail, is one way of finding solace in a confusingly unjust world. Then there are those who imagine the Universe has a third layer, earth, that contains elements of both, beauty and terror.
Injustice is a recurring theme in philosophical inquiry and art-form. The beautifully executed The Shawshank Redemption (1994) explores what it takes to keep hope alive when faced with a murder rap. The iconic line, Get busy living or get busy dying reflects stoicism; when life is spiralling out of control, all we can do is control our reaction to it. There are no satisfying answers to why so many innocent people are tossed around by twists in destiny. It’s a sobering thought that everybody’s more vulnerable when a morally bankrupt government is in charge.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
