PRABHA SRIDEVAN, J.

The 14th of February 1998 was a day of unimaginable terror and horror as bombs continuously exploded in the city of Coimbatore. The State of Tamil Nadu had never before been subjected to something like this. It was a massacre of the innocents. The case was known as the ‘Coimbatore Bomb Blasts Case’. The trial court pronounced the judgment in that case on 01-08-2007. Thus, a trial, which had a sweep of unprecedented magnitude, came to an end. But it inflicted wounds on all barring none. The wounds still remain. Violence is always a comma, and is never a full stop.

2. The case of the prosecution is stated hereunder. We have abbreviated the narration of the prosecution case restricting it only to the relevant details: The city of Coimbatore was subjected to 19 bomb explosions, between 14-02-1998 and 17-02-1998, resulting in the death of 58 persons and injuries to 250 persons and huge loss to private and public properties. Bombs planted in 24 places were recovered/defused. According to the prosecution, this was engineered by a fundamentalist organisation called Al Umma. A1, S.A. Basha is the founder/leader of Al Umma. In an earlier case, he had been convic