Mumbai, July 23 -- Four months after seven blasts ripped through the lifelines of Mumbai and killed 189 people on July 11, 2006, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested 13 people. One was acquitted by a local court in 2015 after nearly nine years in prison. The other 12 - five of whom were on the death row - were acquitted by the Bombay high court on Monday. HT spoke to one of those acquitted and the families of some others. Mohammad Sajid Magrub Ansari said he was still coming to terms with the verdict. "I have no words right now to describe how I feel. Everyone at home is overjoyed and we have been having sweets all morning. It hasn't fully sunk in, I am feeling so many emotions simultaneously," he said. Sajid was released on parole on July 1 and was slated to go back to the Nashik prison on August 10. The 48-year-old was accused of making the explosive device that was detonated at Borivali station on July 11, 2006, a charge he denied. Before his arrest, he ran a mobile repair shop at Jogeshwari, and said he knows nothing about the new smart phones that are now in use. He learnt how to use WhatsApp only after coming out on parole earlier this month. "How can I go back to doing mobile repair work? I have been set back by almost 20 years. Despite my acquittal, I don't think anyone will give me a job," he said. In prison, however, Sajid completed the first year of his law degree, and is now in his second year. He has been helping prison inmates with filing bail and parole applications. Mubashshara Majid was one month old when her father, Mohammad Majid Mohamad Shafi was arrested. She was raised by her mother, Farzana Yasmin, in Kolkata's Sealdah. "I grew up without my father, but my mother never hid anything about him from me. She always believed he was innocent and that he would come back home one day," Mubashshara, now 19, told HT. In school, she could not avoid answering questions about her absent father, as her mother was the only parent who turned up at parent-teacher meetings. "Whenever someone asked me where my father is, I'd say he does not live here. If they asked me where he lives, I'd say Mumbai," said Mubashshara. On Monday, after hearing about her father's acquittal, Mubashshara said she was grateful. "My mother waited for justice her whole life. She would have been the happiest person today." In 2013, Yasmin suffered a kidney failure, and her health started deteriorating. "In 2015, when the (trial) court convicted my father, that broke her. In 2021, I lost her," said Mubashshara, who now lives with her maternal grandparents in Kolkata. Majid worked at a shoe shop in the Raja Bazar area of Kolkata. However, Mubashshara's early memories of him were those in the corridors of Mumbai's local court. "I would only get to see him coming in and out of one room and going to another," she said. She got to know her father through letters they wrote, sometimes eight pages long. She could talk to her father twice a month over a video call, but the last time she met him in person was in 2020 at the prison in Amravati, where they were allowed "gala bhet" or physical contact between inmates and relatives. "I have learnt from my father that you cannot change the things that are not in your control, but I prayed because I believe that dua (prayer) can change one's destiny," Mubashshara said. In the 19 years that brothers Faizal and Muzammil Shaikh spent in prison, both their parents passed away, and their brother Rahil went missing. Their only sister, Aaliya, a mathematics teacher in Dubai, was waiting to see her brothers walk out of jail. "Of course, I feel great relief today but I also feel sad that my parents suffered so much before they passed away," she told HT. Aaliya remembered Faizal calling her frantically on July 11, 2006, asking where their father was. "We lived in Mira Road, and so many of our family members travelled on the local train every day. It was a lifeline for us. Faizal called my phone and asked me where Abu was. He asked me to make sure he was not on the train. He was so worried. Would someone who carries out a bomb blast make such a frantic call?" she asked. In 2015, the special MCOCA court sentenced Faizal to death and Muzammil to life imprisonment. "When my brothers were arrested, the media was lined up outside our house. I said that day that my brothers were innocent, and it has been proven now. My parents suffered so much pain and harassment. My father died in 2019, and my mother died in 2024. I was the only one there for them after their sons were arrested," said Aaliya, a mother of four, who made annual trips to Mumbai to look after her parents. Her brothers, both unmarried at the time of their arrest, are now in their forties. She said Faizal ran his own business and Muzammil, a software engineer, had a job in Bengaluru before they were arrested. "My brothers have been very strong and patient all these years," said Aaliya. "Questions should now be asked of those who made false cases against my brothers. They could not catch the real culprits, and they made my brothers scapegoats to hide their own incapability," she added. By afternoon on Monday, Anees Ahmed was in Pune setting the paperwork in motion for the release of his cousin, Asif Basheer Khan, from the Yerawada Central Jail. He was not surprised when he heard that the process may take longer than he expected, but he was hopeful of taking Khan back home to Jalgaon soon. Khan, a civil engineer, worked with a construction company before he was arrested in 2006 in the 7/11 blasts case. "The family, our town, and our community are very happy today. People have been coming to his house to meet his family all day," said Anees....