India, July 22 -- The Bombay high court on Monday acquitted all 12 people convicted for the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts that killed 189 people, overturning five death sentences and seven life terms in an order that lambasted the investigation for "cut-paste" confessions and said the prosecution "utterly failed" to prove the case.

On an otherwise nondescript Tuesday evening in Mumbai 19 years ago, seven bombs exploded in local trains between 6.23pm and 6.29pm during peak commute, targeting hundreds of people making their way home on the city's most popular public transit service. The blasts killed more people than the 2008 terror attacks, and injured nearly 900, in what remains one of India's worst ever such strikes.

Four months afte...