Nineteen years behind bars. Nearly a decade-long trial. And finally, a verdict that says: they were never guilty. As the Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 men convicted in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case on July 21, law students in Pune are calling it what it feels like to them: a systemic failure and a tragic miscarriage of justice.

From Fergusson College to ILS Law College to Symbiosis Law School, the reaction has been unified: anger, disbelief, and deep concern over what this says about India’s criminal justice process.

“Aren’t we taught that there’s a difference between an accused and a criminal?” asked Atharv Shinde, a law student at Fergusson College. “But from the very start, these men were treated as if they were already guilty. It’s like the system forgot that trials are meant to establish the truth, not just to brand people,” said Shinde, who felt these men became “soft targets” trapped in a process they couldn’t escape.

“This isn’t just about them. It raises bigger questions than whether ordinary citizens, victims, or even the innocent really trust the system anymore?” he said.

At ILS Law College, the sentiment is just as critical. Amit Todkar, a student, voiced strong concerns about the lack of accountability. “The system must answer for this. They can’t just keep innocent people behind bars for years, under the pretext of trials. There needs to be urgency, and more importantly, the responsibility,” he said.

Todkar stressed that India’s legal system must not treat prolonged custody as a substitute for real justice. “We cannot accept delay as the norm. When the process itself becomes the punishment, something has gone very wrong,” he asserted.

According to Madhav Madan from Symbiosis Law School, the victims and the convicts are like the two sides of a coin. “In this case, both sides have suffered, and justice was lost in the process itself. The convicts have been punished without committing the crime. The victims, meanwhile, have been denied closure. It’s a no-win situation for everyone, except maybe the real culprits,” he said.

Another Symbiosis law student, Divyansh Godara, criticised not just the delay but the way hope was handed out casually to the victims’ families. “If justice couldn’t be delivered, then why were these families given false promises?” he asked.

“It’s exhausting both the trial process and the emotional cost of believing the system will work,” he said. Godara added that while attention is now rightly on the acquitted, the victims’ families have once again been pushed to the margins, grieving in silence, with no clear answers.

For Pune’s future lawyers, this case is more than just a legal study, but a casebook of what must change. “This judgment doesn’t bring closure. It opens up a thousand new questions,” said Todkar.

From demands for legal reform to calls for stronger investigative accountability, students across colleges agree on one point: India’s justice system cannot afford to let another 7/11 happen — not in crime, not in court, and not in process. In one voice, they ask, “where are the actual perpetrators, even after 19 years?”

The Bombay High Court’s order overturned a 2015 special court verdict that had awarded death sentences to five of the 12 convicts and life imprisonment to seven, holding them guilty in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts that killed 189 people and injured 824. The special court had acquitted one accused.

On July 11, 2006, a series of bombs ripped through seven Mumbai local train coaches during the evening rush hour.

(Divyaja Kalyankar is an intern with The Indian Express)