Mumbai, Feb. 23 -- On January 30, when Mohamad Majid Mohamed Shafi, 45, married Simi Shaikh, 38, in Amravati, Maharashtra, it was the culmination of a friendship that began in 2016, but it was also more. It was a fresh start for Shafi -- and not just because his first wife died in 2021. It was a fresh start for Shafi because he had spent the previous two decades in jail, serving a life sentence in a terror case. For his new wife, marrying Shafi was also an act of faith. They first met in 2016, when she was a lawyer working with the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind and he was "Accused no.5" in the 7/11 serial train blasts case of 2006, one of India's biggest and most heinous terror attacks, killing 188 people and injuring 829 others in Mumbai. The Jamiat started as an anti-British movement in 1919 and now works across India providing legal aid to terror accused whom they believe to have been falsely accused. It bore the legal expenses of the accused in the 7/11 case. Shafi's new life began in July last year, when he, and 11 others were acquitted in the 7/11 case. On July 21 last year, in a strongly-worded judgment, the Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 accused in the case, some of them on death row, who had all spent almost 20 years in jail. One of the 12 had died in the course of the trial; and another remains in jail in a separate terror case. The other 10, including Shafi, walked out of jail in July last year and started picking up the pieces of their lives. It hasn't been easy for any of them -- especially with an appeal against their acquittal, filed by the Maharashtra government, pending in the Supreme Court. Their future rendered uncertain by that appeal, the 10 men are trying to carve out a present for themselves, reconnecting with family, building relationships, or, like Shafi, starting new ones. His first wife Farzana Yasmin died of a kidney ailment in 2021 while he was imprisoned. "Rebuilding my life has been hard as it is, but aging alone would have made it even harder. I am very lucky that I got this fresh start with my wife whom I respect deeply. By marrying me she has sent a message that there can't be just one way of looking at a person," Shafi told HT from Kolkata. "In the last 19 years, I have lost too many things that were precious to me. I just want to lead a normal life now," he added. Shafi was accused of harbouring wanted terrorists and arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) from his family's shoe shop in the Raja Bazar area of Kolkata in 2006, when he was 26-years-old. Shafi has been lucky. Zameer Shaikh, 51, another of the 10 who was released -- he had been handed a life sentence by the trial court -- says he is "trying to rebuild and maintain what remains of my life" in Mumbai's Worli. "Making new friends is difficult, sustaining old ones even harder," he adds "Since I came out (of prison), nothing has been smooth, especially with my wife and children. We are separated, and my kids live with her. I was absent for too long. Relationships can't be sustained like this. I am almost entirely dependent on my siblings now. It is not easy to rebuild a family in these circumstances." Shaikh was accused of undergoing terror training in Pakistan and carrying out reconnaissance of trains ahead of the blasts. Also in Mumbai, Sajid Ansari, 49, is trying to get to know the daughter who was born soon after he went to prison. "There seems to be a strangeness between me and my daughter as we had never stayed together." Ansari was serving a life sentence, and was accused of procuring the electric circuitry and other equipment for bomb making and harbouring Pakistani terrorists. Others are wracked by guilt -- over ignoring their families for almost two decades, and over fears that their release could bring their families unwanted attention. Suhail Shaikh, 57, says his "family has fallen behind by years because of my incarceration." And he admits that he sometimes feels "I have become a bigger burden on them after I have been released." Shaikh, a resident of Kondhwa in Pune, was serving a life sentence and was accused of conducting reconnaissance on trains between Churchgate and Virar. Tanveer Ansari, 50, a unani practitioner accused of identifying targets and training in arms and explosives at an LeT camp in Pakistan, and sentenced to a life term, was troubled after his acquittal by policemen continuing to visit his home in Mumbai's Agripada. It was bringing his family too much attention, he thought. He sent an e-mail to the police. "I told them that I am acquitted of all charges. I have given them my phone number and promised to cooperate with whatever they need, but I requested them to stop showing up at my house. Finally, the visits stopped." And most of the 10 are trying to find their feet, financially. In Kolkata, Shafi is helping a friend run his paper plate business, earning Rs.500 a day. In Mumbai, Zameer Shaikh has joined his family's modest key-making business. And Sajid Ansari, who repaired mobile phones for a living before he was arrested in 2006 -- he has a diploma in industrial electronics -- is trying to make a career in electronics. The phones he once repaired are now obsolete, but his skills are not completely redundant, he says. "The world has changed but basic concepts remain the same." He has cleared the fifth semester of his three-year law course and he is also half way through a four-month trainee programme at an IT company in Navi Mumbai. He travels three hours one-way from his home in Mira Road to Navi Mumbai, to learn hardware and networking. As for Tanveer Ansari, soon after his release, he was reappointed as a medical registrar at a hospital in Mazgaon, where he worked before his arrest. About 410km from Mumbai, Asif Khan, 53, a civil engineer, has made small beginnings in Jalgaon. Khan was formerly a death row convict accused of procuring bags, utensils, ammonium nitrate, detonators, and other material required for making the bombs. He got his first gig as an independent construction supervisor recently, and last week, he bought a second-hand motorcycle with his family's help. "I used to ride a bike before. Now, I ride to the construction site about 4km from my house daily," says Khan, savouring this small joy. Khan lived in Mira Road before his arrest and worked with a real estate developer in Kandivali. After he was acquitted, he approached his former employer but that door was firmly shut for him. Closer home in Jalgaon, he approached two other businesses to employ him only to be turned away again. He is now supervising the construction of a three-storey residential building, thanks to an acquaintance. Amid gravel, concrete, and a JCB machine, Khan seems hopeful. "They will pay me as they see fit but at least it's a start. I'll be glad even if I can meet my fuel expenses." And in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, where he now lives with his wife and parents, Ehtesham Siddique, 44, a death row convict accused of harbouring wanted Pakistani co-conspirators at a rented flat in Mumbra after the bomb blasts, and carrying explosives-laden bags on the day of the incident, is preparing to help others like him. While in jail, Siddique waged a fierce battle in his defence, all the while educating himself. He earned certifications in 22 courses from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), an MBA and a law degree while incarcerated. In his 19 years behind bars, he also filed 6,000 RTI applications and read almost 2,000 books across law, English, Hindi and Urdu literature and religion. He is now keen to start practice as a lawyer. It's the only profession, he says, where his experience with the criminal justice system would be an advantage. "I know the system better than an ordinary person." All of them who have found employment are happy that they are working. "It feels very good to be able to work again," says Mohammed Ali, 56 who is setting up a garment shop in Govandi, Mumbai, next week. After his release, he worked for some time as a cashier in a wholesale garment shop, and was fortunate enough to have an employer who trained him in the trade. Ali was serving a life sentence and was accused of allowing his house to be used for the assembling of the bombs used in the blasts. And the only one among the acquitted who refused to speak to HT, Naveed Khan, 46, an engineer and a former death row convict -- he was accused of carrying explosives to Churchgate before the blasts -- has started his small business with the help of well-wishers after his acquittal. He sells Indian cuisine, shawarma and biryani at his roadside eatery in north Mumbai, according to Wahid Shaikh, who runs the Innocence Network. In 2015, long before the men acquitted by the Bombay High Court were released from prison, Wahid Shaikh was the only accused in the 7/11 bomb blasts case to be acquitted by the trial court that sentenced five of the other 12 accused to death and the rest to life imprisonment. Through their appeal, and after their release from prison, Wahid has been their guiding light. A school teacher, Wahid founded the Innocence Network to help undertrials falsely implicated in terror cases. "The main concern that the acquitted men have is the Maharashtra government's appeal against their acquittal in the Supreme Court. A person's liberty is most important and they certainly fear losing it again. They also have concerns about getting back on their feet. They reach out to me for help with finding work, loans or any other support. And another thing they worry about is their families. There are issues of marital discord, ill health, children's education that they need help with," said Wahid. Not everyone has had it easy. Suhail Shaikh, who worked as an acupuncturist before his arrest, has been unable to find a job. And Muzzamil Shaikh, 42, a software engineer, says acquittal means little when one is associated with a serious terror case like the 7/11 bomb blasts. He was accused of travelling to Pakistan via Iran in August 2004, receiving arms training, and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial court before his eventual acquittal. "No reputable company will hire me" he says. Navigating life in Mira Road with the help of his sister visiting from Dubai, Muzammil is struggling to get his documents in order. "All my earlier identity cards have either expired or become invalid. After a lot of paperwork, I managed to obtain a driving licence. But my Aadhaar card is still caught in red tape. There is no clarity in the process, and no institutional support from jail authorities in restoring post-release documentation," he rues. He says he cannot start even a small business without first having a bank account which, in turn, rests on his Aadhaar card. "A small group of friends I made in jail stood by me after my release. One of them employed me as a caretaker in his business premises in central Mumbai, giving me a modest remuneration to survive," he says. His brother Faisal Shaikh, a former death row convict in the same case, continues to be lodged in Yerwada jail, in another case. Faisal Shaikh was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Aurangabad arms haul of 2006 in which the ATS seized 43kg of RDX, 10 AK-47 assault rifles, 3,200 live cartridges and 50 hand grenades. The years in prison have also wreaked havoc on the minds of the acquitted. In Kolkata, Shafi is still getting used to his freedom. "In jail, we'd be ordered to go to bed by 8pm. Kolkata is noisy and crowded late into the night. It's been hard for me to adapt." He is also terrified about sleeping with the lights off. "In jail, one light would always be on through the night. But, at home, everyone switches off the lights and that scares me. I am unable to sleep well." In Mumbai, Zameer Shaikh says life outside prison has unsettled him both mentally and physically. "Since my release I have fallen ill almost every other day." And in Jaunpur, Ehtesham Siddique says he is always disoriented. "In jail, I had time in abundance but it feels scarce now. Sometimes I can't find even an hour to study. I struggle to keep pace with the world. There is no clear sense of time, only constant motion." Suhail Shaikh says that despite his acquittal, he is always afraid. Last October, when he read in the newspaper about Pune-based software engineer Zubair Hangargekar's arrest for his alleged links with Al-Qaeda and sharing "extremist content" on Telegram, Shaikh felt a knot in his stomach as his house was raided. He says his youngest son Shaamil's phone and laptop too were seized by the police although he was not made an accused in that case. "There is constant fear that he too may be arrested and our family will have to witness the same cycle again. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about him."...