Accused to acquitted, but their trial isn’t over
19 years on, 12 men have been freed in the 2006 train blasts case. Sunday Times examines how harsh anti-terror laws upend lives, even after a ‘not guilty’ verdict
In Sept 2012, when Mohammad Irfan Gaus was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS in the Nanded arms haul case, he ran a modest inverter battery business and had been married for just six months. It took him seven years to get bail and nine to be acquitted by a special National Investigation Agency court in June 2021. Ironically, the three men found guilty in the Nanded arms case were sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. In the eyes of the law, the difference between the innocent and the guilty was just a year.
The years of incarceration have left Gaus, now 36 years old and currently unemployed, broke and broken. “We were never rich, but the earnings of my small business were enough for us to get by. After the arrest, my family spent all the savings, sold their belongings, and borrowed from relatives to fight the court case,” he says.
