Acquitted 7/11 Mumbai Train Blasts Accused Wahid Shaikh Reveals Jail Torture And Justice Fight

Wahid Shaikh, who was the first to be acquitted in the 7/11 train blasts case, spoke to The Free Press Journal, describing his nine-year jail ordeal and how he didn't lose grit and completed his higher education and became a lawyer, while being lodged in Arthur Road Jail.

The advocate and other ex-convicts are mulling to seek Rs1 crore compensation for each year spent in the jail from the government. The Bombay High Court recently acquitted 12 men after they spent 19 years in jail.

Shaikh was arrested in 2006, months after several blasts ripped through local trains on the Western Railway. In 2015, the special MCOCA court freed him, citing the absence of eyewitnesses, confessional statements or recovery.

Donning the hats of teacher and author, Shaikh now champions the rights of those wrongly imprisoned. Talking to his newspaper, he opened up how the pain of wrongful incarceration took a toll on his family and how his wife held their world together.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Shaikh's father was a Hindu from Uttar Pradesh, who converted to Islam after being raised by a Muslim woman at a dargah in Kalyan. A post-graduate in Urdu with a D Ed degree, Shaikh was working as a teacher at Anjuman I Islam school in Byculla when he was arrested at the age of 27, just a few years after his marriage. “I was living in Mumbra with my wife and newborn daughter, while the rest of my family was in Vikhroli,” he recalled.

After the blasts, Shaikh said that the Parksite police called him for questioning and four months later, on September 29, 2006, the ATS took him into custody. He was accused of being a part of Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned outfit, and ISI, and of allegedly sheltering Pakistani nationals in his Mumbra home.

“I was tortured with waterboarding and leg stretching during 30 days of the ATS custody,” Shaikh lamented. He said that the torment was unimaginable, adding that he was later shifted to Arthur Road jail’s high-security ‘Anda Cell’, where he remained for nine years. However, he hailed ACP Vinod Bhatt as a “rare humane officer”. “ACP Bhatt knew we were innocent, but was under immense pressure from the higher-ups. Eventually, Bhatt’s own life became unbearable and he died by suicide,” Shaikh recounted.

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Shaikh further said that after his arrest, his family life was turned upside down. His wife, just a new mother at the time, took up a teaching job at a school in Jogeshwari to raise their children. “She visited me every week with our baby girl in her arms. She raised both our kids alone. Today, my son is pursuing medicine and my daughter is in college,” said an emotional Shaikh.

He revealed that he wrote hundreds of love letters to his wife from jail. “Whenever she visited me in court, I would give her those letters. She has preserved every single one. I plan to compile and publish them as a book soon,” Shaikh shared.

He said that despite the mounting odds, he didn’t give up. An incarcerated Shaikh completed his M A in English, then pursued LLB and LLM degrees. He also authored a book in Urdu 'Begunah Qaidi' (Innocent Prisoner). “Faith in Allah kept me going. I always believed I would walk free one day,” he said.