Many crimes including those as serious as bomb blasts in public places evoke great anxiety when they take place but the stark reality remains that memory fades as years pass by and along with it fades the seriousness with which the accused get prosecuted in those cases. One such case is that of the September 27, 1996, bomb blasts at Hotel Imperial, opposite the Egmore railway station in Chennai.
Two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted under dinner tables at Maxim’s Hall, the dance floor of the hotel, had exploded on that day during a cabaret performance.
Many customers and employees suffered injuries during the incident. Nevertheless, the city police could not crack the case for long, forcing the transfer of investigation to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) on March 17, 1997.
Even after that, the case remained unsolved for long. The police were able to complete the investigation and file a chargesheet only in 2001 against three supposed fundamentalists Mohammed Kasim, Siva alias Jeeva alias Atham alias Mottai Khadar alias Abdullah and Sheikh Mohideen alias Nazrudeen.
The prosecution’s case was that they had triggered the blasts to teach a lesson to those who organise and participate in cabaret performances.
After a full-fledged trial, a special court for bomb blast cases at Poonnamalee near here convicted all three accused under different provisions of law and sentenced them to eight years of rigorous imprisonment.
The special court’s verdict was delivered on November 17, 2006, almost a decade after the blasts took place and about 12 years since then, the Madras High Court has now set aside the conviction and sentences imposed on two of the three convicts.
Allowing a joint criminal appeal filed by the second and third accused in 2006 and pending in the High Court since then, Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira freed the duo alone of all charges since the first accused Mohammed Kasim had not preferred any appeal.
Pulling up the police for shabby investigation even in such a serious case, the judge said, the court could not confirm the conviction and sentences in the absence of unflinching evidence.
He pointed out that the police had arrested the third accused on March 3, 1998, and the second accused on July 27, 1999, on the basis of alleged disclosures made by two other accused in a different case. However, curiously, those two accused had not been examined before the special court for bomb blast cases. Further, a belated statement had been obtained from a female co-tenant of the first accused to prove the charge of conspiracy hatched by the trio.
Stating that the evidence of the woman does not inspire the confidence of the court, the judge said, she would have certainly informed her husband if she had really heard the three accused conspire to plant a bomb in the hotel a day before. He also wondered how could she not have revealed the alleged conspiracy to anyone even after having read about the bomb blast in the newspapers the very next day.
Referring to many other shortcomings including the failure to conduct test identification parades, the judge said: “These would go to show that the investigation was not done properly thereby making the case of the prosecution highly doubtful.”