In an attempt to address complaints of Muslims that innocent youth from the community are falsely implicated in terror cases, arrested and jailed, the home ministry has agreed to set up special courts to conduct speedy trials in such cases.

It has also promised strong action against officers responsible for such cases, saying arresting and keeping innocent people in custody knowingly was a serious crime. Besides, the ministry has also decided to take up with the states cases of innocents being charged when such cases come to its notice.

"The ministry of home affairs strongly supports the proposal for special courts so that expeditious trials are possible," home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said in a letter to minority affairs minister K Rahman Khan, who had taken up the issue with him last month.

But Shinde's letter did not mention a time-frame for setting up such courts.

In his letter to Shinde, Khan had pointed out that in some cases, "young men have been incarcerated for 10 to 14 years as under-trials and then finally acquitted by the courts as being innocent".

Many Muslim organisations, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, have been demanding setting up of special courts to ensure speedy disposal of such cases, compensation for victims and lodging of cases against officers who have falsely implicated them.

The issue has a political dimension as many opposition parties have been giving voice to the Muslim concerns and pointing fingers at the Centre.

The Samajwadi Party, for instance, had in its election manifesto promised the release of "innocent Muslim youths who are in jail on terror charges." SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier this month claimed that the Akhilesh Yadav government has released 400 minority youth from Uttar Pradesh's jails.

The latest such case which made national headlines involved journalist Muthi-ur-Rehman Siddiqui and DRDO scientist Aijaz Ahmed Mirza, who were arrested by the Bangalore Police in an alleged terror plot seven months ago but released on bail after the NIA failed to file charges against them.

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