AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi wants retrial in Masjid blast case

​Hyderabad: A delegation of Muslim leaders led by MIM party Chief Asaduddin Owaisi called on Governor ESL Narasimhan on Thursday and sought his intervention for reinvestigation of the Mecca Masjid blast case under the supervision of Hyderabad High Court.  

Later speaking to media-persons, he said that since the entire prosecution was compromised, we brought it to the notice of the Governor. He said that the trial was conducted by a lawyer who has never conducted a murder trial. This was the proof that the NIA (National Investigation Agency) was acting at the behest of the BJP government. 

“We requested the Governor to not only convey our sense of anger and despair but to also ask the Government of India to either go for retrial or at least appeal against this judgement in the higher courts of law so that justice is done,” he said. In the memorandum copy, the delegation cited the voluntary confessional statement of priest, Swami Aseemanand who had admitted his and his group’s guilt in the matter of the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid about 11 years ago.

He pointed out that confessional statements, he said not once but twice recorded by the authorities. “An investigation that followed found him and his group, capable of being charged and a trial followed. But the acquittal that resulted is therefore a matter of deep shock,” stated the delegation. 

The delegation demanded the Governor use his high offices and demand the Home Ministry of the Union government to conduct retrial of the case on the lines of cases in Gujarat, where alarming acquittals happened and later tried. They asked that witnesses who turned hostile be investigated. 

Allegations that the confessional statement of Swami Aseemanand was not free or voluntary be investigated. “The prosecutor be selected from persons with wide criminal experience in the state and the sensitive matter not be handled by a novice to criminal law,” the delegation demanded in the memorandum. 

Amongst other issues demanded are to pressure the Telangana government to make report of Commission of Inquiry into police firing after Mecca Masjid blast, as at least five died in firing and conducting of retrial of Vatoli (Adilabad) case where a family was burnt alive in October 2008. In this case also all the accused walked free, since the Adilabad district sessions court quashed the CB-CID case on April 16, this year.