Indian court acquits Muslim scholar in train blast case

By Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI

A court in India on Saturday acquitted a former Muslim scholar of all charges in the Sabarmati Express train blast case.

The Barabanki sessions court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh could find no evidence against research scholar Gulzar Ahmed Wani in the August 2000 train blast, which killed nine people.

Wani was a PhD scholar at India’s Aligarh Muslim University before his arrest in 2001. He has already spent 16 years in jail before being acquitted on Saturday.

He had faced charges in 11 different cases, but so far has been acquitted in all of them.

Wani, who hails from the Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir, had approached the Supreme Court of India last month to seek justice for him.

The apex court called his 16 years in custody without bail “shameful”.

A bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud last month told the counsel for the Uttar Pradesh government -- which opposed his bail -- “He has been acquitted in 10 out of the 11 cases but still you want him to be in jail without bail”.

"Out of 11 cases against him, he was convicted in one case for 10 years for carrying explosives. But his sentence was suspended as he had spent more jail term before being acquitted in different cases," said Prabhat Singh, Wani's counsel.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965 and 1971 – two of them over Kashmir.