3 minutes of readingBombayFebruary 10, 2026 1:11 PM IST
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Nadim Akhtar Shaikh, 14 years after his arrest in the 2011 Mumbai triple blasts case.
A bench comprising Justices Ajey S Gadkari and Shyam C Chandak accepted an appeal by the nearly 29-year-old accused, who claimed that he had been jailed awaiting trial for over a decade after his arrest in January 2012, and there was no likelihood of his trial being completed in the near future.
The court ordered Shaikh’s release on submission of a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh along with one or more sureties of the same amount, under other conditions. Shaikh had approached the high court in May 2022 after a special court rejected his bail plea and sought relief citing long imprisonment pending trial in the case.
On July 13, 2011, three explosions rocked Dadar, Zaveri Bazaar and the Opera House. Bombayclaiming 27 lives and injuring more than 100 more people. The probe agency has charged 11 people in connection with the blasts, including suspected operatives of the outlawed terror group Indian Mujahideen (IM), for masterminding the attacks in central and south Mumbai.
The accused were booked by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on charges related to criminal conspiracy, murder, attempt to murder, causing hurt and under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA).
Previously, in November 2025, the High Court had granted bail to another accused in the case, 65-year-old Kafeel Ahmed, almost 13 years after his arrest.
One of the accused, Kawal Pthreja, an alleged hawala operator, died while the trial was pending. Yasin Bhatkal, a key IM agent who faces the death penalty for Hyderabad explosions, is among those accused in the triple explosions case.
Story continues below this ad.
On October 30, 2023, another bench of the high court had asked the trial court to expedite the proceedings pending since 2012 and conclude the case within a year. The court ordered the MCOCA special court to hold regular hearings.
The ATS first arrested Ahmed and Shaikh, alleging that they took the agency to a rented house in Byculla, where the bombs were allegedly assembled. Ahmed allegedly led them to duplicate keys to the rented house, along with the keys to two stolen scooters that were allegedly used in the explosion.
According to the ATS, Bhatkal had rented the house with the help of Ahmed and Shaikh. The money used in the conspiracy was sent on the instructions of another accused, Haroon Naik, through hawala transactions and Zainul Abideen, another accused, had purchased the material for the blast and kept it in his house, the ATS claimed.