Two SIMI activists accused of bombing Sabarmati Express acquitted

Two activists of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) accused in the Sabarmati train blast of 2000 were acquitted by a court in Barabanki on Saturday.

Abdul Mubeen and Gulzar Ahmad Bani from Kashmir were accused of planting a bomb on the Sabarmati Express on August 14, 2000. The train was headed from Muzaffarpur to Ahmedabad when an explosion ripped a coach apart, killing nine persons and injuring 40 others.

Additional District Judge Mahmoud Azhar Khan said the prosecution had failed to prove the case against the accused.

Bani, a research scholar of the Aligarh Muslim University, was arrested by Delhi Police in July 2001 from the New Delhi railway station, while Mubeen is from Siddharthanagar in Uttar Pradesh. Both were in jail for the last 16 years.

The duo were accused in 11 cases but they have been absolved in all of them.

--IANS

md/vd