The blame must be shared by the investigating agencies, the government of the day and the nation at large, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
On July 21, 2025, after 19 years, the Bombay high court found 12 accused in the July 11, 2006 train bombing case not guilty of the offence under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
Ten days later, a special court in Mumbai acquitted all seven accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case of 2008.
The verdicts produced less outrage than what happened when Jessica Lal's killer was acquitted due to 'deficiency in the investigation' in 2011, 12 years after the murder.
The murder of 187 people in Mumbai and 6 dead in Malegaon failed to prick the conscience of the candlelight march brigade.
The Bombay high court verdict and the special court verdict represents collective national failure.
The blame must be shared by the investigating agencies, the government of the day and the nation at large.
While many countries like the United States that faced the threat of terrorism seem to have successfully prevented any repetition, we seem to continue to suffer the scourge of terrorist violence, the latest being the Pahalgam killing of the tourists on April 22, 2025.
India has been facing the scourge of terrorism since the 1980s.
The West woke up to this menace only after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The British had a taste of terror when London was shaken with bomb blasts on July 7, 2005 in which 52 people died.
The train bombing case acquittals and the Malegaon case verdict based on legal technicalities raises the larger question of India's approach to terrorist violence.
This is not a problem peculiar to India but has a global dimension.
The basic problem in our case is that we have approached the issue of terrorism with measures legal, police, military, political and psychological in isolation from each other.
There has been a perceptible lack of a combined holistic approach.
One reason the West seems to have succeeded more than us is this difference between a coordinated action versus several agencies and departments doing their own thing.
I was fortunate to participate in a six day workshop in Salzburg, Austria in 2007. The participants included legal luminaries like Justice Sandra O'Connor, the first woman judge appointed to the US supreme court, the British attorney general, many legal luminaries, counter -terrorism experts as well as police and intelligence operatives.
The theme of the workshop was 'Democracy, Rule of Law, Human Rights In The Age Of Terrorism'.
The dilemma posed by transnational crimes and the difficulties in defining the terrorist's status and tracking them across borders was debated threadbare.
My contribution was essentially to draw attention to the following:
Despite having faced the problem of terrorism for over four/five decades, I have not come across a single effort where the judiciary, the police, intelligence and military elite sat together and debated the issue.
The various arms of the State seem to have almost an antagonistic view of each other's role.
While the judiciary is concerned with the letter of the law and human rights, the other wings of the government often turn a blind eye to legal and human rights. As there is no dialogue, a middle path eludes us.
India faces a peculiar problem unique to us and probably Israel. We face terror groups that have full access to the resources of a functioning State, in our case Pakistan and in Israel's case, Iran.
Essentially, terrorist violence in India is committed by another State in our country.
How do the police gather evidence and prepare a case when the planners and implementers have already fled to Pakistan!
State supported terrorism and murder being tried under MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) is ludicrous.
These are no gangsters but State operatives and even military men at times. This is like trying a case of poisoning as a case of food adulteration.
In both these cases we erred in trying it under the anti gangster act, instead it should have been tried as waging war against India!
It seems that after four decades we have finally found the gumption to call a spade a spade and hold the Pakistani State responsible for acts of terror in India.
That was the biggest gain of Operation Sindoor.
Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian and author of Let the Jhelum Smile Again (1997) and Nuclear Menace The Satyagraha Approach (1998).
His earlier columns can be read here.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff