When the Law Becomes a Weapon: India’s Broken Promise of Justice

When the Law Becomes a Weapon: India’s Broken Promise of Justice

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Countercurrents.org / by  Dr Ranjan Solomon

“Innocence, once lost to the gallows or a prison cell, can never be returned. Who pays for that injustice?”
Today, the Bombay High Court overturned what had once been touted as a major victory in India’s fight against terror: the conviction of 12 men in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, in which 189 people died. Five had been sentenced to death. The other seven, to life in prison. They had already spent over 18 years behind bars.
The High Court has ruled that the prosecution “utterly failed” to prove its case.

We must ask: What kind of justice system jails people without trial for 5, 10, 15 years—and then quietly lets them go when the truth catches up?
Do we even pause to think of the lives destroyed?
– Father Stan Swamy, 84 years old, arrested under UAPA, denied a straw for his Parkinson’s, died in custody without trial.
– Professor G.N. Saibaba, wheelchair-bound, imprisoned for years, only recently acquitted.
– The Bhima Koregaon 16—intellectuals and lawyers framed with tampered evidence, still awaiting justice.
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Also read:
7/11 Judgment Fails to Hold Police Accountable For Custodial Torture, Lost Time of Those Acquitted (The Wire / Jul 2025)
Police torture, ill-treatment make India ‘high risk’: Report (Newslaundry / June 2025)
Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)
G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing (The Wire | by Rona Wilson | Oct 2024)
‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’: G.N. Saibaba (The Wire / March 2024)

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