Was the investigation unscientific?
Six Minutes of Terror is brilliant book that deeply analyses The Mumbai Train Bombing on 11 July 2006, one of the deadliest attacks the financial capital of India had seen after the 1993 blasts. The terror strike was aimed at crippling its lifeline—the local train network. A series of seven explosions in a span of only six minutes at seven railway stations that killed 189 and injured over 800 people.
Six Minutes of Terror is the first investigative book that captures the horror, the drama, the characters and also the loose ends of the plots and the investigation. It can be a sequel to S. Hussain Zaidi’s book—Black Friday. The authors are the young reporters—Nazia Sayed and Sharmeen Hakim. Nazia has been a crime reporter for over a decade with television as well as print journalism. She broke many stories particularly the one that exposed the nexus between Mumbai Mafia and ISI. Sharmeen Hakim is a legal correspondent with Mumbai Mirror. Her strong grasp of the law has earned reputation of a thorough court journalist at the young age of 24.
These two reporters consulted court proceedings, interviewed the victims, lawyers, and investigating officers, accessed the documents, books and came up with dazzling accuracy in analysing the events, investigation and presented it like a Crime Thriller. Almost every sentence in the book is well supported by the evidence—documentary or well recorded circumstantial evidence. Still, they have managed to take liberty in making it a compelling reading. This superbly researched book tries to delve into the minds of home-grown terrorists. There were two other terror attack cases related to the 7/11 blasts: The Aurangabad arms haul and the Malegaon terror strike. The blame for both cases was affixed on some of the people arrested in 7/11 case. Faisal was named an accused and later convicted in the Aurangabad arms haul case. Asif and Mohammed Ali’s names figured in the Malegaon blasts case. The brother of one of the accused in the Malegaon case was also tried and convicted in the Aurangabad arms haul case. In view of this the authors raised following probing questions:
“Are these cases really linked to one another? But then, weren’t the blasts in Malegaon, a city with an 86 per cent Muslim population, later alleged to be a revenge attack by Hindu extremists? Was arresting a similar set of accused in all the three cases a mistake and did little more than weaken ATS’s own investigation in each case? Why could they not acknowledge the possibility of Hindu extremism before Swami Aseemandand, the prime accused in the Samjhauta blasts case, split the beans a few weeks after he was charged?”
The authors go on and note that, “The Islamist group SIMI was branded a terrorist organisation and banned in 2001. However, Abhinav Bharat, the group of Hindu extremists allged to have taken part in the Samjhauta train blasts and the 2008 Malegaon blasts, is yet to face similar censure.”
And finally the journalist duo remarks that “there needs to be a complete overhaul of how investigating agencies perceive and investigate cases related to terrorism, and it should go beyond religion. Agencies should steer clear of making tall claims at the outset when their investigation is unscientific. Doing this is only an affront to every victim of terror—living, injured or dead”.