The Allahabad High Court has overturned the conviction of Mohammad Ilyas in the 1996 Modinagar-Ghaziabad bus bomb blast, holding that the prosecution failed to establish any legally admissible evidence linking him to the attack that killed 18 passengers.

A division bench of Justice Siddharth and Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra set aside the 2013 trial court verdict, remarking that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to prove the charges. In its order delivered on November 10, the bench noted that it was acquitting Ilyas “with a heavy heart” because the attack had “shocked the conscience of society”.

A key pillar of the prosecution’s case was an audio cassette allegedly containing Ilyas’s confession made in the presence of police officers. The bench held that the trial court committ

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