The Delhi High Court delivered a scathing verdict in July, quashing 16 First Information Report(s)/ Cases registered against 70 Indian nationals accused of sheltering attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in their homes or mosques during COVID-19. While quashing the criminal proceedings, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna observed that the allegations in the chargesheet are “prima facie embellishments and exaggerations” and “abuse to the process of criminal law”.
Barely a week later, twelve Muslim men jailed for the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts case were acquitted by the Bombay High Court as it noted that the prosecution “utterly failed”. One of the accused, Kamal Ansari, had died in custody, not living to see a free day and his innocence being declared. Although the State of Maharashtra has filed an appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment and the Supreme Court has stayed the judgment, as of today, all the accused will be released and have not been directed to go back to jail or custody. Now, the Supreme Court will determine the appeal, and as of today, they stand acquitted.
On the surface, the Tablighi Jamaat ‘super spreader’ hysteria and the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case appear unrelated, yet they share a damning thread, the instant presumption of Muslim guilt and one was branded as ‘Corona Jihad and the other was presumed terrorist before trial. The mainstream media, investigative agencies, and political rhetoric weaponise their power to criminalise an entire community. Only to be corrected later, if ever.
In two different decades, the Muslim identity became prima facie evidence of culpability. While the courts ultimately dismantled the cases built on prejudice, many lives were shattered in the process.
While acquitting the accused in the Mumbai bomb blast case, the High Court questioned the role of the investigation agencies concerning destroying the Call Detail Records (CRDs) and said, ‘the investigation conducted by them amounts to a grave violation of the right to a fair trial. The Court observed as under:-
“The prosecution could have easily established the location and movement of the accused at the aforementioned relevant places and times through the CDRs (Call Detail Records). Instead, the CDR was destroyed. This act raises serious doubts over the integrity of the investigation conducted by the investigating agency and amounts to a grave violation of the right to a fair trial.”
As soon as the lockdown was announced in the early days of the COVID pandemic, the mainstream news media and politicians found ‘the enemy’. They labelled Tablighi Jamaat members a “super-spreader”, accusing them of “Corona-Jihad”. Television shows flared the headlines accusing them of treachery, hinting at their religious identity. All this without a shred of credible evidence. It took five long years for the justice to be delivered, while the accused suffered the hysteria and blame. The Delhi High Court, in its quashing order, ripped into the case. This exposed how the case filed by the investigating agency was influenced by the media, relied on hearsay, and communal bias was given way to dictate narratives.
The Mumbai blasts story unfolds even with a larger tragedy, over a far longer haul. On July 11, 2006, a series of coordinated bombings on suburban trains killed 187 people and injured over 800. In the days that followed, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) identified thirteen accused individuals. After a long legal battle, the Bombay High Court, in its judgment, said that the prosecution failed in establishing the case beyond a reasonable doubt. “It is hard to believe that the accused committed the crime”, it said. For almost two decades, these men languished behind bars, they were labelled terrorists, all while the prosecution relied on forced confessions and eyewitnesses who contradicted.
Whether it is the accusation of spreading a disease during a pandemic or planning a city-shaking bombing, what binds these episodes together is the wicked presumption of guilt based on faith. If you are Muslim, you must be a suspect. Media outlets become storytellers, instigators, and even prosecutors, as they peddle inflammatory labels, shaping public opinion against the minorities. Even the state machinery is not far behind when it comes to using the presumption of guilt. The investigative agencies see these labels as leads, shaping cases around communal tropes. The camera has also become a choice of weapon, where the accused are paraded in front of, to cement the guilty verdict. All this long before admissible evidence is tested. In both cases, the courts have operated as delayed correctives, delivering justice so late that it amounts to little more than an apology.
The human cost and accountability
While the judgments by both the High Courts are appreciated, what about the cost the accused had to bear for their identity? One group was vilified for months, another spent years behind bars. And it is just not the accused that suffered; their families faced ostracisation too. Tablighi Jamaat attendees had faced detentions, visa cancellations, and, not to mention, social ostracism and shaming. The men accused in the Mumbai blasts sacrificed their best years in person.
The lost careers, ruined businesses, broken families, and, in one case, loss of life itself, are evidence enough that the human cost of the presumed guilt is incalculable. Even with the acquittals and quashing of chargesheets, the scar remains. With this in front of their eyes, how do the minorities trust the institutions of the country that are eager to label innocents as monsters based on their faith? Former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, S. Muralidhar, representing two of the convicts, had shed light on the cost of the “communal bias”. “Innocent people are sent to jail, and years later, they are released for want of evidence. By then, there is no possibility of reconstructing their lives,” the senior advocate said. As rightly said, the exoneration can not undo the stolen lifetimes and the weight of faith they had to carry.
Reconstructing lives may take ages for these people; worse still is that there is no accountability for those involved in manufacturing these injustices against them. What happens to the officials who are involved in pursuing motivated charge sheets before credible proof? Which police officer would face an inquiry for alleged torture in the Mumbai case? Media anchors who blasted Islamophobia hysteria on national television still command high-TRP primetime slots. The system shelters its architects, leaving victims without redress and emboldening future abuses.
While critics may argue that both cases are vastly different. Comparing a health-related case to a terror accusation is overemphasising similarity. The counterargument is that the bias functions the same way, regardless of the alleged wrong. The prejudice follows identical steps, whether it is a pandemic violation or mass murder. It is to vilify, investigate based on identity, prosecute with weak evidence, and delay justice.
Where does the buck stop
For a country whose judicial system is overwhelmed with a huge number of cases. It is other checks and balances that one can rely upon. If one believes in due process and the rule of law, these cases would not stand. The state institutions and media would not so freely botch up investigations or declare guilt. The buck stops nowhere as from interrogation methods, to prosecutorial conduct, to rush for TRPs, to the role of political pressure, all this takes part in shaping the cases. Not only should media regulators enforce stringent penalties for hate-mongering and vilifying individuals, but a need for a harder look at the state machinery. Why does India lack effective systems for rehabilitation? Even though the freedom regained is no substitute for years of life lost.
Above all, the country must reckon with its deep-seated structural bias, one that treats Muslim identity as prima facie evidence of guilt. Whether in the Delhi High Court’s acquittal of Tablighi Jamaat members (wrongly vilified during the pandemic) or the Bombay High Court’s exoneration of train blast accused (after years in prison), the pattern is undeniable, that a minority community is presumed guilty long before trial begins. Their names are dragged through the mud, their lives deemed expendable in the court of public opinion.
A society as diverse as India can only thrive when its institutions protect all citizens equally and when justice is blind to faith and faction. Acquittals in these cases are not conclusions, but mere pauses in a system rigged against the marginalized. Until the presumption of Muslim guilt is dismantled, and until those who enable this prejudice are held accountable, true justice will remain a distant dream. Ultimately, the question lingers that, how many more lives must be stolen before India confronts its conscience? Sigh.
Nishat Anjum is pursuing masters from Jamia Millia Islamia in Peace and Conflict Studies. She is a former journalist with Informist Media Pvt Ltd.
