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When AN Roy, Raghuvanshi mocked families of Muslims framed in Mumbai blasts case

Around 20 years on, all the Muslims arrested in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case have been found innocent with all charges against them dropped by the Bombay High Court, and what their families claimed before former CM Deshmukh and Police officials proving to be true.

Wednesday July 30, 2025 8:43 PM, Aleem Faizee

[Former ATS Chief K.P. Raghuvanshi (L) and Ex Commissioner of Police Mumbai A.N. Roy (File image/Social Media)]

It was September 15, 2006 that coincided with the very next Friday after the terrorist attack of September 8, 2006 in Malegaon. Led by Maulana Abdul Hameed Azhari, we were in Mumbai to attend a meeting organized by the local activists for the families of the Muslim youth framed in the 7/11 Mumbai Train Blasts. We also wanted to meet then Home Minister of Maharashtra RR Patil, the appointment with whom was taken by Maharashtra Minority Commission Chief of the time Naseem Siddiqui.

We decided to attend the Mumbai event and meet RR Patil as the reports of how the blames of various blasts were put on Muslim youth were everywhere in the media. People in Malegaon were apprehensive that the same will be repeated in the case of the Hamidiya Masjid in Bada Qabristan and Mushawerat Chowk blasts in Malegaon on September 08, 2006. This was also because the situation after the 2006 Mumbai train blasts had become worse for the Indian Muslims when everyone of them, it was largely felt, was a suspect in the eyes of the Government, Police and the Society.

At the event held at the historic Khilafat House in Mumbai, the families of the Muslim youth framed in the 7/11 Mumbai Train Blasts shared the horrifying details of how they were tortured by the investigating agencies. They also claimed that their kin arrested in the case were innocent and wrongly framed in the case.

At the meeting, Maulana Abdul Azhari gave details of the 2006 Malegaon Qabristan blasts and the consequent investigation underway. Pointing out that the investigating agencies already started giving the sectarian colour to the 2006 Malegaon blasts as they took place on Shabe Barat, Maulana Azhari feared that the investigation is moving in the direction which will ultimately lead to the arrest of Muslim youth, making it a typical case where Muslims were victims as well as accused while letting free the actual perpetrators.

In the meeting, Samajwadi Party Maharashtra President and at that time an MP, Abu Asim Azmi, was also present. He told us that he has invited all the Muslim MPs to Mumbai and they will be meeting, along with the families of the Mumbai train blast accused, now acquitted, with then Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh on Saturday September 16, 2006. He suggested us to join if possible.

[As many as 189 people were killed and 824 others were injured when a series of blasts hit the suburban local trains in Mumbai during the rush hours on July 11, 2006. The failure to nab the real culprits is grave injustice to the victims.]

We had already met RR Patil in the afternoon. He had assured us that the investigation will be fair but sounded unconvincing. Therefore we thought it would be helpful if we also meet the Chief Minister, and hence extended our day-long visit to Mumbai.

Since we were in Mumbai on Saturday September 16, 2006, we called on Director General of Police P. S. Pasricha in the morning and shared with him whatever details we had about the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the ongoing investigation. After listening to us, he also assured us that the investigation will be transparent and no innocent will be arrested in the case.

In the afternoon on the same day, we met Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh at Mantralaya along with Abu Asim Azmi and 20+ Muslim MPs belonging to various parties including the Congress, and the families of the Muslim youth arrested in the Mumbai train blasts case.

There was a big round table in the meeting hall. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and DG Police P. S. Pasricha were sitting in the centre. Commissioner of Mumbai Police AN Roy, Maharashtra ATS Chief KP Raguhvanshi, and other police and administrative officials were sitting on the left side. The right side was reserved for the Muslim MPs, and the families and relatives of the Muslims arrested in the July 2006 Mumbai train blast case.

Every Muslim family present there had a tragic story of brutal police torture to share with, torture of not only the Muslims, who were in the police custody, but also of their close relatives and family members. There was the elderly father who described how he was brutally treated and stripped in front of his son inside a police station. There was the wife of another accused who detailed how police tortured her husband and undressed him in front of her in order to pressurize him to follow the police line. There was the aged mother of one another Muslim youth to share her trauma and torture inflicted on her son.

The same was reported by noted journalist Jyoti Punwani in a recent article in these words:

“Entire families were whisked away to different lock-ups; there was no formal arrest. A husband was stripped in front of his wife; a father in front of his sons; a sister-in-law’s burqa was yanked off, flung on the face of her accused brother-in-law, and trampled underfoot.

“The men were threatened that every woman of the family would be given the same treatment. For days after that, one of these women would get up in the middle of the night, screaming and wanting to run away, her brother told me."

Listening to the trauma of the families, Chief Minister Deshmukh looked worried, P.S. Pasricha appeared tense and the atmosphere in the meeting hall was somber. But, the two men – AN Roy and KP Raghuwanshi, it appeared, had totally opposite feelings. AN Roy was chewing the gum. With a cruel smile on his face and continuously shaking his legs, he would frequently look at Raghuwanshi and the two would mockingly nod their heads as the family members of the accused shared in front of the Chief Minister the horror they were going through one after the other.

[Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh (centre), one of the Muslims acquitted by the Bombay High Court in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case, being received by family and friends after his release. (Image: PTI)]

The Muslim MPs, who also included Hyderabad MP and AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi, Jamiat Gen Secerary at the time and a member of the Rajya Sabha Mahmood Madani, Mohammed Salim of CPI (M) and others besides Abu Asim Azmi, requested the Chief Minister Deshmukh to look into the matter. Everyone present there was unanimous that they were in no way supporting the acts of terrorism. But, innocent people should not suffer in the name of fighting terrorism.

The horrifying details that the family members shared in the meeting were enough to move any person with slightest humanity. Maulana Abdul Hameed Azhari and other members of the delegation from Malegaon present in the meeting and apprehensive that the same could be repeated following the terrorist attacks in Malegaon hence hoped that the Chief Minister will indeed take some corrective measures.

The Chief Minister, however, didn’t do anything and gave free hand to the police and the investigating agencies as any action against them “would have downed their moral”. The apprehensions of the people of Malegaon turned into reality when police arrested local Muslim youth for conspiring and planting bombs. It didn’t matter to the investigating agencies and the government that one of the Muslim youth they believed was a planter was more than 600 kms away from Malegaon at the time of the terrorist attacks in the Muslim dominated textile city.

[Former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh (L) and Former Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited Bada Qabristan in Malegaon where a blast on September 08, 2006 had killed more than 30. (ummid.com file photo)]

All explanations and evidences that proved the innocence of the local youth were ignored. The investigation, it appeared, was working on some pre-decided plan and pre-written script, completely ignoring that letting free the real culprits would be injustice to the victims. Consequently, they arrested the local Muslim youth who had to undergo torture and languish in jail for more than five years before they got bail and finally discharged from the case after 11 years following the confession of Swami Aseemanand that it was he and other members of the RSS, and not the Muslims arrested in the case, who perpetrated the blasts in Malegaon and other places of the country, including Samjhauta Express.

Muslims discharged from the 2006 Malegaon blasts case later shared the details of torture they underwent in police custody. They also shared with the media how AN Roy, Raghuwanshi and other officers used to mock them, shockingly, while admitting they were innocent.

“We know you all are innocent. In fact, tum logon ki to auqat hi nahi hai ke blasts kar sako.. You don’t have the capacity and skill to do such acts… but you have no option but to follow what we say”, two Muslims framed in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case and later discharged, told the media, quoting KP Raghuwanshi and other officials as saying to them during interrogations.

One of the Muslims discharged from the Malegaon blast case told ummid.com how the investigating officers would drink for hours before mocking, abusing and beating them during police custody.

When asked by the media, ATS Chief KP Raghuwanshi denied the accusations saying:

"It is part of the Al Qaeda training manual that those arrested must make such allegations."

Around 20 years on, all the Muslims arrested in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case have been found innocent with all charges against them dropped by the Bombay High Court, and what their families claimed before former CM Deshmukh and Police officials proving to be true. But, not before spending so many years of their life in jail and suffering brutalities.

[Six people, including 5-year-old girl Farheen, had died in the terror attack in Malegaon on September 29, 2008. (Inset) Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. (Image: ummid.com)]

The sufferings of Muslims for the crimes they had not committed also refute the BJP claim that the Congress governments were soft on the largest minority groups in India because of, though invisible, its “appeasement politics, with PM Modi reiterating this during the debate on Operation Sindoor in the Parliament Tuesday July 29, 2025.

Contrary to what the BJP and PM Modi claim, the Congress governments used brute force against Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism though it has now become apparent that most of them were innocent and were framed in different cases. Some observations made in the Bombay High Court during the trial of the 2006 Mumbai blasts case, in fact, should be a shame for the governments and investigating agencies.

In a ruling the Supreme Court of India said, "Bail is the Rule, Jail is an Exception". But in case of Indian Muslims, this rules has apparently been reversed. For the Indian Muslims, "Jail is the Rule, Bail is an Exception" because of which we see dozens of Muslims languished in different jails and came out only after their youthful years, and also careers, were destroyed.

Meanwhile, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) probing the 2008 Malegaon blast case, for which Hindus associated with some right wing extremist groups have been charged, has come to the conclusion that the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) used torture to extract confessions. The NIA in its chargesheet against the Hindu accused filed on May 13, 2016 also submitted that the ATS had created false evidence to implicate some of the accused.

Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, one of the key accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case who in 2019 won the Lok Sabha election from Bhopal as BJP candidate, too on multiple occasions, accused the ATS of using torture against her and other Hindu accused, according to the reports.

Whose “training manual” Sadhvi Pragya Singh was following while raising such allegations against the ATS, will perhaps be known only after the NIA Special Court judgment to be pronounced Thursday July 31, 2025.

The 2008 Malegaon Blast Case verdict Thursday will also make it clear who has been soft in the fight against terrorism – the BJP or the Congress as this is on record that Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian was asked to “go soft” on the Hindu accused charged in the case.

[The writer, Aleem Faizee, is Founder Editor of ummid.com. Aleem Faizee has also worked as a Researcher at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and with Action Aid for its research work published as “BROKEN PROMISES -A study on the socio-economic status of Indian Muslims: Seven years post Sachar”. His research work “Mollywood: The Rise and Fall of a Subaltern Cinema” is part of the book “Creative Industries in India” published by Routledge India of Taylor and Francis Group, London. A prolific writer, Aleem Faizee has also wrote for The Times of India as a Freelance Journalist for over 10 years.]

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