NEW DELHI: On the morning of September 11, 2015, Abdul Wahid Shaikh, along with 12 other Muslim men, who had been accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blast case, offered their daily prayers and groomed themselves, with a hope that good news awaited them at a special court where their judgment was to be announced. After spending nine years behind the bars, Shaikh was finally acquitted of the terror charges “falsely” imposed on him. Seven others were sentenced for life imprisonment and five were awarded death sentence. Shaikh was in tears, while those convicted were smiling.
“They were happy for me. Also, they found some hope,” Shaikh told this newspaper when he visited the national capital to address a seminar on the plight of prisoners. In 2014, while in prison, Shaikh had enrolled himself in an undergraduate law course, which he completed in 2018.
He is also the author of ‘Begunah Qaidi’, a book on the story of his nine-year incarceration.
Explaining the day of verdict, he said: “I was striving to go back to my family, to my kids, who had by then, lived their precious childhood without their father, when my brother-in-law Sajid Ansari (one of the convicts who were sentenced to life term) walked to me to say — ‘Please stay for another day in the prison. I need to speak to you’.” Shaikh said ‘okay’ as he understood his pain.
“I was dying to be with my family but I readily accepted to stay back as I felt terrible for others, who were, like me, charged wrongly.” On that day, his brother-in-law spoke to Shaikh about fighting his case and about appealing to the higher courts. “He handed over a few letters, addressing his wife and daughter, who must have been eightyear- old at that time, as she was in her mother’s womb, when her father was put behind the bars,” Shaikh said, adding he passed on those letters.
“I consoled Sajid’s daughter, embraced her with more love than I did my own kid.” “It feels sad that till date she hasn’t been able to get justice but we have continued our fight since 2016.” Along with more than eight lawyers, Shaikh is still fighting the case of these 12 men “falsely accused and arrested” in the serial blast case that killed about 200 “because I know they are innocent and deserve justice”.