After 14 years in jail, life will never be the same for the four acquitted in the Lajpat Nagar blast case
After 14 years in jail, life will never be the same for the four acquitted in the Lajpat Nagar blast case
They were barely in their teens when they were termed terrorists. Their sufferings and pain could only echo within the closed walls of Tihar and Loni Jail.u00a0 For the four acquitted in the 1996 Lajpat Nagar blast case, their lost innocence can have no enemy but time.
"We expected them to be celebrate the verdict, but on the contrary, all of them broke down. They have lost faith in everything. For them, freedom has no meaning left. They have lost their youth, their dreams, their family, that too, for no fault of theirs," said advocate Anwar Ahmad Khan, representing the cases of the Kashmiri youth accused in the case. The 14-year ordeal for Mohammad Iftkhar Hussain Saba (34), Lateef Ahmad Waza (34), Syed Maqbool Shah (32) and Abdul Ghani (38) have not only sapped their vigour to move ahead in life, but has also made them mere marionettes of destiny.
"Despite the fact that a murder accused is allowed to go on bail after five or six years, these people were not given bail even when their parents and siblings passed away. They almost pleaded the court to hang them in
this state of crisis," said advocate Chaudhary Abdul Farooq, citing instances when the accused were forced to take extreme steps to fight for justice. Depression and isolation were the only friends that kept the acquitted going. Some suffered severe ailments while some tried to kill themselves in frustration.
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"Surprisingly, all of them had been booked under Sections 302, 307 (murder and attempt to murder) and that of Explosive Substance Act and not under serious acts pertaining to terrorism. The accused are from Jammu and Kashmir and were acquitted due to lack of evidence," added Khan.
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Fourteen years after 13 people were killed and 39 injured in a bomb blast in Lajpat Nagar market, a city court on Thursday convicted six accused including a woman, and acquitted four due to lack ofu00a0 evidence. All the accused are from Jammu and Kashmir. The 10 accused were arrested from different parts of the country. Farooq and Farida were arrested from Kashmir, Naushad, Ifteqhar and Maqbool Shah from Delhi, Mirza Nissar from Mussourie, Javed and Abdul Gani from Ahmedabad, and Mohammad Ali Bhatt and Lateef from Gorakhpur during May-June 1996. The blast took place on the evening of May 2, 1996, in the busy central market of Lajpat Nagar locality in south Delhi. |
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