‘The weight of a false confession’: Abdul Wahid Shaikh on the regime of horrors of Maharashtra’s Organised Crime Act

IN 2015, I WALKED FREE AFTER SPENDING NINE YEARS IN PRISON as one of the accused in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts. A special MCOCA court acquitted me, holding that the case against me didn’t hold weight. 

Yet, during the years of my incarceration, one piece of evidence stood above all else: confessional statements recorded under Section 18 of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (‘MCOCA’). On paper, this clause allows confessions made to a senior police officer to be admissible in court. In practice, it is nothing short of legalised torture.

I still remember the words of my co-accused Asif Bashir Khan, whispering through his pain: “Confession is conviction.” I saw him tortured before my eyes, forced to sign statements that came straight from the imagination of ATS officers. When my turn came, I was forced to confess. My interrogator, Arun Khanvilkar, told me it would be easier if I cooperated. I replied: “You can kill me, but I will not sign your bogus story.” I knew that to confess would not only destroy my life but betray the truth. That refusal brought unimaginable brutality upon me, but I endured.

When I later met my co-accused in Arthur Road Jail, I realised that almost all of them except Khan, under unbearable pressure, had signed such confessions. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (‘ATS’) immediately leaked these to the media. Newspapers and television channels carried headlines: “Bombs planted in pressure cookers,” “Conspiracy unravelled,” and “Accused admit guilt.” The public narrative shifted overnight. Friends and well-wishers who once defended our innocence began to ask: “If they themselves have confessed, why should we doubt it?” That was the true power of MCOCA confessions.

All of my co-accused, including Khan, were convicted. Khan, like me, was adamant about not giving a confessional statement, and he never did. However, because his name appeared repeatedly in the confessional statements of others, the trial court still convicted him. While I was eventually acquitted, Khan remained imprisoned, though he, too, was acquitted by the Bombay High Court in 2025.

This is not a mistake, nor a bias, nor the act of an individual officer. While many officers were unwilling participants—like Vinod Bhatt, who ultimately had to end his life rather than be drawn into this corrupt system—the reality is that the extraction of confessions under torture reflects a systemic, institutional practice. From the lowest ranks to the highest, officers are complicit in drafting and fabricating these statements, fully aware of their illegitimacy. The process is deliberate, with all levels functioning hand in glove, shielded from accountability. Fundamentally, this constitutes a case of malicious prosecution.