Mumbai: Nearly seven months after he was acquitted in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case, the Bombay High Court on Monday granted bail to Faisal Ataur Rehman Shaikh in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, which had kept him behind bars.
Shaikh was among the 12 men acquitted by the high court on July 21, 2025, in the 2006 serial train blasts case. While 10 of the acquitted men were released soon after the verdict—and one had died in prison in 2021—Shaikh continued to remain lodged in Pune’s Yerwada Central Jail as he was serving a life sentence in the Aurangabad arms haul case.
On Monday, a bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande granted him bail in the case, while his appeal against conviction remains pending.
The Aurangabad case involves the seizure of a massive cache of arms and explosives by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). On May 8, 2006, the ATS intercepted two cars on the Chandwad-Manmad highway near Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar) and arrested three people. The police seized 30 kg of RDX, 10 AK-47 assault rifles, 3,200 live cartridges and 50 hand grenades from the vehicles. Subsequently, 18 more people were arrested in the case, including Shaikh.
Shaikh was accused of being a part of the larger conspiracy, with the police claiming he had been working for the Pakistan-based terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba. The police also alleged that he had arranged the visit of co-accused Fayaz Kagzi to Pakistan via Iran for training in an LeT camp, and also sent a few men to work for the terror outfit. A trial court convicted him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in July 2016 and sentenced him to life imprisonment. At the time, he had already been sentenced to death in the train blasts case and had been in prison since 2006.
In 2018, Shaikh filed his appeal in the high court challenging his conviction in the arms haul case, and also applied for bail. On Monday, the high court allowed his bail plea. The court’s detailed order is awaited. He is expected to be released from prison in a few days, said his lawyer Payoshi Roy.
Roy had also represented Shaikh in his appeal against the 7/11 case conviction, along with lawyer Yug Chaudhry. She argued that Shaikh’s continued incarceration was a gross miscarriage of justice as he was convicted in the Aurangabad arms haul case based on evidence in the 7/11 case, which was discarded by the high court when it acquitted all 12 accused in the case.
The only evidence against Shaikh in the Aurangabad arms haul case, she said, was his alleged confession in the 7/11 bomb blast case. She also contended that Shaikh’s co-accused, Bilal Ahmed Razaq and Afroz Pathan, were both granted bail in 2022 and 2023, respectively.