Mumbai, June 11
Eight persons, including a doctor from a government hospital, accused of setting off bombs in Mumbai's BEST buses in 2002 were acquitted by a special court today.
Judge A. P. Bhangale of the special POTA court in Mumbai accused all accused for lack of evidence.
Those acquitted include a former forensic expert of J J Hospital and alleged mastermind in the blasts, Dr Abdul Mateen, software engineer Khwaja Yunus, Jameel Ahmed, Toufiq Ahmed, Imran Rehman Khan, Altaf Mohammad Ismail, Arif Panwalla, Haroon Rashid Lohar and Rashid Ansari.
Khwaja Yunis is missing and presumed dead. Senior police officers who arrested Yunus are being probed for his possible murder in custody.
The blast claimed the lives of two persons with more than 50 persons receiving serious injuries after the bomb went off in a bus on December 2, 2002.
The case fell flat when 11 witnesses produced by the prosecution turned hostile. Conductor of the ill-fated bus Dattraya Shelkar, who is also the main complainant, also turned hostile and refused to identify the accused in court.
"The verdict hasn't come as a surprise to us. We were expecting this all along. Justice has finally been done to the innocent people who were framed in the case," said defence lawyer Majeed Memon. Meanwhile, the state government is planning to appeal the acquittal before the Bombay High
Court.
