A day after the Union home minister declared that Hindus cannot be terrorists, a special court in Mumbai acquitted all seven accused — the former Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian, Pragya Singh Thakur, is among them — in the Malegaon blasts case. The bombs killed six people and injured almost one hundred others in a Muslim-dominated town in Maharashtra in 2008. There is no doubting the fact that the blame for the acquittal needs to be placed at the door of the National Investigation Agency, which had taken over the case from Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism squad in 2011. The verdict makes the prosecution’s bungling in the course of the investigation crystal clear. Among its failures, India’s premier counter-terrorism agency could not convince the court that explosives had been planted in the motorbike, which was allegedly used to trigger the blasts, and that the vehicle belonged to Ms Thakur. No evidence could be gathered by the investigators against another accused, the serviceman, Prasad Shrikant Purohit, who had been charged with raising funds to purchase explosives for a shadowy right-wing organisation and storing and assembling them at his residence. In other words, apart from proving that a blast, indeed, had taken place, the NIA had not been able to prove any of the other serious charges. Little wonder then that the court noted that mere suspicion could not be an alternative to tangible evidence and, therefore, in the face of such shoddy investigation, a conviction was unwarranted. It needs to be stated in this context that the NIA had, as early as 2016, filed a chargesheet, stating that it could not find sufficient evidence against Ms Thakur and three others and had recommended dropping the charges against them. Is the outcome a chronicle of an acquittal foretold? The Malegaon case assumed importance because this was the first instance in which Hindu extremists had been accused of being involved in an attack.

Acquittals on account of poor — prejudiced? — investigations are not uncommon in India. Recently, the Bombay High Court had acquitted all those who had been convicted in the serial train blasts in Mumbai in 2006. Here too, the high court had made scathing observations about the infirmities in the investigation. This raises serious questions about India’s investigation agencies and their overarching edifice. Are the obvious gaps in investigative processes not being addressed? Is there a shortage of skilled personnel, infrastructure, funds? What about the autonomy of such institutions and their commitment to public accountability? Are they free from political interference or even ideological prescriptions? The future of many a sensitive investigation and the attendant matter of justice depend on honest answers to these queries.