Nearly three decades after he was thrown into prison for a blast that killed 18 people, the Allahabad High Court has acquitted Mohammad Ilyas in the 1996 Modinagar–Ghaziabad bus bombing, ruling that the State had failed to prove even the basic charges against him.
Mohammad Ilyas was arrested from his residence in Ludhiana in June 1997.
In its order dated November 10, a division bench of Justice Siddharth and Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra set aside his conviction, noting that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to establish Ilyas’s alleged role in the attack.
The judges said they were passing the acquittal “with a heavy heart”, acknowledging the blast as a “terrorist” act that “shocked the conscience of society” and killed 18 passengers.
Despite that, the court held, there was no legally admissible evidence to jail Ilyas.
The bench ruled that the trial court had committed a “great legal error” by relying on a police-recorded audio cassette claimed to contain Ilyas’s confession, a statement that is categorically inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act.
“If this evidence is excluded, there is absolutely no evidence against the appellant in support of the charge,” the court said.
The judges further noted that the witnesses who were supposed to support the prosecution’s version, including those linked to an alleged “extrajudicial confession” by Ilyas and the co-accused, had turned hostile during trial and did not support the State’s case.
“Therefore, in the present case, the confession recorded by the Senior Police Officer will not be permitted to be proved under law due to an embargo created by Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872,” the order said.
The case dates back to April 27, 1996, when a bus left Delhi at 3.55 pm with 53 passengers on board. Fourteen more passengers joined on the way. Minutes after crossing Modinagar Police Station, a powerful explosion ripped through the front portion of the bus. Ten people died instantly, 48 were injured, and forensic teams later found that RDX mixed with carbon had been placed beneath the driver’s seat and triggered using a remote switch.
According to the prosecution, the attack was allegedly planned by Abdul Mateen alias Iqbal, a Pakistani national described as a district commander of Harkat-ul-Ansar, in conspiracy with Mohammad Ilyas and Tasleem. Ilyas was accused of being “indoctrinated” in Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2013, the trial court acquitted Tasleem but convicted Ilyas and Abdul Mateen under multiple sections of the IPC and the Explosive Substances Act. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment, along with additional terms of rigorous imprisonment and fines. No state appeal was ever filed against Tasleem’s acquittal. There is also no information on whether Abdul Mateen filed an appeal.
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