Apart from its work in 11/7 case, innocence Network India is helping other terrorist accused with legal assistanceA narrow, rain -soaked lane leads to a small surface room in Vikiri, Mumbai. Inside, some chairs, a grass, shelves of books, and the maps of India and the world hang on the wall. This baseless place is the ‘Secretariat’ of the innocence Network India, which is an alliance of lawyers, jail-rights activists and civil society groups, which “wrongly prosecuted or convicted, especially for the rights of” rights of “under allegations of terrorism.On July 21, when the Bombay High Court acquitted all the 12 men convicted of the 2006 Mumbai train blasts-also known as the 11/7 bomb blast-some credit was due to this small known alliance, which kept the pressure alive, as well as the Maharashtra unit’s efforts of the Maharashtra unit office of Jamiatul Ulma-e-Hind.Wahid Sheikh, who helped find the network, is blindly happy, and yet combated, sitting in his two -room tenment. This is the place where Shikhe, a school teacher in Nagpada, Central Mumbai, spends the acquitted undertriery since most of his school hours, his one-man YouTube channel, which enhances cases of alleged wrong prosecution and demands compensation for acquitted convicts. It was here that he filed a congratulatory message for the accused and their families before one night before the verdict.Sheikh says, “I was 100% sure HC would exclude them. I filed it before hearing the order.” He should know. He was one of the 13 people arrested under the Maharashtra control of the Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) for train blasts. He spent nine years in Arthur Road Jail before being acquitted in 2015. The only person who runs free at that time.Soon after, his role moved from the accused to a lawyer. The day the prosecution demanded the death of eight for eight and the terms of life, Sheikh was filing applications in the court to allow two accused – Ehteshham Siddiqui and Sajid Ansari.That day, he said, “This is not the end of the road. There are more doors to knock, and have to go a long way.” Since the decade, that road has become the work of his life. Outside his teaching job at a school in Nagapada, Sheikh has dedicated himself to help undertriate and families because waiting for years.The journey from the accused to the advocate started in jail. Inside the Enda Sale, he read 10 newspapers a day in four languages, recorded dozens of RTIs, and helped other prisoners prepare their defense. He earned an LLB in English, an MA, and wrote ‘Baganah Kaydi’, a 400-Page Urdu memoir that was later translated into Hindi and English and adapted to a film.By 2016, two years after their own acquittal, Sheikh had formally shape his work by establishing an innocent network, a coalition of lawyers, retired judges, activists and filmmakers committed misunderstandings and committed long avatars. Seminars for those caught in crosshare of collective terrorist cases organize the People’s Tribunal and a public campaign. Sheikh, 48, explains, “Innocent is an NGO for network Exonerass, by Exonicids and Exoneuries,” 48 -year -old Sheikh explains. He says that several RTIs registered from jail helped him and other accused during the trial.“We had to build our case from inside,” they say. “It became a foundation for everything.” This idea came from innocence projects worldwide. “Such networks by civil society groups exist in various countries. When we saw how many men were incorrectly implicated in terrorist cases and were later acquitted by the courts as the states failed to prove their guilty, we realized the need for such a network in India too, ”Sharib Akalam Ali, co-founder and scholarly.Over the last eight years, the Innocence Network has run a mobile legal-help clinic and awareness drive. But one of its most visible devices is the People’s Tribunal, a citizen -led public hearing, exposing stories that are often ignored in courts.On October 2, 2016, in such a tribunal in Delhi, under the chairmanship of retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah, about 15 acquitted persons shared testimony and filmmaker Saeed Mirza was one of the eight -member jury, whose recommendations later informed the Law Commission report number 277.“One of the recommendations was that India confirmed the United Nations Conference against torture, which he has signed, but never formally adopted,” says Shaheen, a Delhi -based lawyer and network facilitator Fawaz Shaheen. Another major recommendation was canceled by Section 18 of Mcoca, which allows the confession of police custody to be acceptable, which is the central issue for 11/7 testing.In 2017, another tribunal held in Kolkata heard more than 20 acquitted testimony in cases of terror. The network has also compiled a dosier based on letters written by 11/7 accused from jail, and continues to file RTI to highlight procedural laps and custodial irregularities. Regular meetings are organized by the coalition which run on Pro Bono Support with Aakas like retired Bombay HC Judge BG Kolse Patil.For the blast case, the legal battle is not yet over. The Bombay HC order is all acquitted, stayed by the Supreme Court. And from this small room of Vikoli, the fight continues.
