Saturday, June 11 2005 15:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: A special court today (Jun 11, 2005) acquitted eight persons, who were accused of conspiring and planting a bomb in a BEST bus in suburban Ghatkopar on December 2, 2002, in which two persons were killed and 49 injured.

Special POTA Judge A P Bhangale acquitted Dr Abdul Mateen (29), Shaikh Mohammed Muzammil (28), Imran Rehman Khan (33), Mohammed Altaf (28), Toufiq Hamid (27), Aarif Hussain alias Aarif Panwala (32), Haroon Rashid Lohar (33) and Rashid Ansari (37) as the prosecution failed to prove charges against them.

According to prosecution, the accused had hatched the conspiracy between March 2002 and December 2002 to avenge the death of Muslims in post-Godhra riots.

The Blast was the first in the series of bomb blasts that rocked the city in 2002 and 2003. This is the first POTA case in which judgement has been delivered.

Before this, the police had invoked POTA against alleged Al Qaeda suspect Mohammed Afroze. However, the anti-terrorism charge was later dropped against him.

Eight Persons, including forensic expert Dr Abdul Mateen and software engineer from Parbhani town in Marathwada Khwaja Younus, were accused of the crime.

Younus allegedly died in custody, while police claimed he escaped from police jeep while being taken to Ahmednagar.

The prosecution received a setback when Dattatraya Shelkar -- the conductor of BEST bus no 416, in which the blast occurred, who is also the complainant -- turned hostile in March this year.

During an identification parade earlier, the conductor had identified three of the eight accused as those who had allegedly planted the bomb in the bus. They were Panwalla, Rashid Lohar and Rashid Ansari.

Apart from Shelkar, ten more witnesses turned hostile during the trial.

Witnesses who turned hostile included inmates of the Sir J J Hospital boys hostel, where Dr Mateen was staying before being picked up by police.

Last year, nine accused - Saquib Nachan, Haseeb Zuber Mullah, Aatif Mullah, Ghulam Sattar, Farhan Khot, Mohammed Kamil, Noor Mohammed Ansari, Anwar Ali and Nadeem Paloba - were discharged by the prosecution for lack of evidence.

According to prosecution, Panwala planted the bomb in the bus while rest of the accused were part of the conspiracy.

The conspiracy was hatched at Dubai by Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Abu Hamsa to avenge atrocities on minorities during Gujarat riots.

Khwaja Younus has been charged with joining the conspiracy to trigger the blast hatched in Dubai while Mateen has been charged of giving shelter to two conspirators at his hostel room.

The witnesses subsequently did not confirm the police claim that some people stayed with Mateen in his hostel room discreetly. Police also claimed that after quitting his job, Mateen went to Hyderabad where he met co-conspirator Muzammil.