An NIA court in Kashmir acquitted two youngsters from Pulwama — booked under UAPA, attempt to murder and Arms Act in connection with a grenade blast on Hari Singh High street of Srinagar in 2021 — and ordered their immediate release.

The court stated that investigation has fallen well short of the standard expected in a prosecution of this seriousness, and the prosecution has failed to prove charges framed against the duo beyond reasonable doubt.

Special judge Manjeet Rai said that the prosecution has failed to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the charges under section 307 of IPC, sections 13, 16, 18 and 38 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and section 7 and 27 of the Arms Act of 1959 against the accused Adil Farooq Bhat and Imran Nazir Najar, both residents of Khrew area of Pampore.

They are currently lodged in central jail and were represented by Advocate Muhammad Abdullah Pandit and Associates. The case pertains to a grenade blast near a police and paramilitary party deployed on Hari Singh High street in Srinagar on August 10, 2021, in which some civilians were injured.

“The prosecution has failed to prove charges framed against Bhat and Najar beyond reasonable doubt…it has not proved accused persons or either of them were its (grenade attack) authors. The accused are therefore entitled to be acquitted of all the charges,” read the court order. The court stated that it was fully conscious of the gravity of the occurrence but it is precisely in cases of this gravity that the court must guard most scrupulously against the temptation to allow the “enormity of the crime to take place of proof” against the particular persons arraigned before it.

“The court cannot also fail to record that the investigation of this case has fallen well short of the standard expected in a prosecution of this seriousness,” read the order. It further stated that “the persons who actually apprehended Adil were never examined by any expert, the lever and splinters were never sent for analysis, the mobile phones were seized without recording their IMEI numbers, no forensic report was obtained or produced, the call detail records were not proved in accordance with law and the file was not placed before the independent review authority before sanction was sought.”

The court stated that these lapses have deprived the court of the very evidence which might have enabled it to reach a definite conclusion as to the authors of the attack. “The prosecution has failed to prove that either of the accused hurled the grenade or was otherwise a participant in the attack. The prosecution has failed to prove that Bhat was found in possession of the two objects produced in the court and has further failed to prove that those objects are handgrenades or any other prohibited ammunition. No evidence of any kind had been led to show that Najar was in possession of or used any prohibited ammunition, save his own inadmissible disclosure,” read the order. The court said that the accused persons who are in judicial custody shall be released forthwith if not required in any other case subject to their furnishing bail bonds.

The police had claimed that attackers attempted to flee but they apprehended Bhat outside Makka Market, a few hundreds meters away from the grenade blast site and on his instance Najar was also arrested on August 19, 2021. The police claimed that they had got the grenade and hurled it in the telephonic directions of a Pakistani Jaish operative Yousuf Baloch.