Mumbai,May 04 :Dealing a blow to the prosecution, the special court of judge M.L. Tahilyani acquitted Fahim Ansari (36) and Sabauddin Ahmed (25), the two Indians named as co-conspirators in the 26/11 attacks.
Rejecting all evidence against them, the court said, “It is highly risky to convict accused number 2 [Ansari] and 3 [Ahmed].”
Ansari, who was brought up in Mumbai, and Sabauddin, who belongs to Bihar, were accused of being Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operatives and surveying the city, preparing maps of the attack spots and smuggling the maps to the 10 attackers to
facilitate the attacks.
But the court said none of the witnesses produced against the two were “reliable”.
About one witness named in the chargesheet but never produced in court, Tahilyani said, “You say Bharat Thakor took Nooruddin [the sole eyewitness against the two] to Nepal to meet them [the accused],” he observed. “But Thakor was never brought before this court.”
The court pointed out that one of the maps, which according to the prosecution was sent by Ahmed to Lashkar bosses in Pakistan, was not crumpled or blood-stained though the pocket of slain terrorist Abu Ismail, from where it was allegedly recovered, was blood-soaked.
Rakesh Maria, head of the Mumbai Police crime branch when it got Ansari and Ahmed from UP, had then claimed, “We ascertained the maps are the same as those made by Ansari.”
The government will challenge the acquittal, said special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.
“I lost hope after Shahid Azmi was killed,” said Yasmin, wife of Fahim Ansari who was acquitted by the special court in the 26/11 terror attacks case on Monday. “I am glad that my husband doesn’t have the tag of a traitor. I am desperate to share the news with our eight-year-old daughter.”
The prosecution had claimed that Fahim had made maps of the targets in Mumbai and gave it to Sabauddin Ahmed, who forwarded it to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Ahmed, too, was acquitted of all charges.
“Bohot raahat mili, bohot accha lag raha hai. Maine unse baat ki, woh bhi bohot khush hain. Woh humesha kehte the woh bekasoor hain. [I am relaxed now. I spoke to him [Fahim]. He is very happy. He always said he was innocent,” Yasmin said.
Fahim’s family, which resides in Motilal Nagar in Goregaon (West), said their lives had changed for the worse after he was arrested for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a Rampur Central Reserve Police Force camp in January 2008. Later, he was handed over to the Mumbai Police in connection with the 26/11 case.
“For the past 20 years, I had a successful an envelope making business,” said Fahim’s brother, Usman Qureshi. “After Fahim’s arrest, my customers stopped giving me orders. I had to shut down my business.”
Yasmin claimed that the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare had interrogated Fahim after he was arrested for the Rampur attack. “He never said anything about Fahim’s involvement in a conspiracy involving Mumbai. My husband has been framed and the court decision shows proves this,” she said, adding, “My husband doesn’t have a passport and he never traveled to Nepal or Pakistan. The police named him just to prove a local connection. When David Headley confessed that he provided video footages of the Mumbai targets, the theory fell flat.”
Yasmin believes that Fahim will be acquitted of all charges in the Rampur attack case as well.