2 hours that shook India

To the people milling around outside, eating lunch, the scene before them transformed suddenly from the familiar to the unimaginable. Smoke drifted out from the BSE’s basement; blood splattered survivors trickled out of the building. The Bank of Baroda branch on the ground floor was blown apart. Around them, a few of their fellow-eaters and food vendors on the roadside were also killed from the impact of the bomb.

Inside the BSE, the scene was chaotic. Most of the people in the basement and mezzanine had been killed. The roof of the underground car park had caved in, flattening vehicles and trapping men.

Outside the BSE, the street was covered in a macabre mosaic of blood, limbs, glass and share application forms. The mounds of food, so attractive just minutes ago, were now splattered with the remains of people’s bodies.

Twenty-six-year-old Babu Murty had heard that Bombay was the city of gold and that if he worked hard, one day he could have his own clothing store. But despite his spirit and grit, he didn’t stand a chance. He was killed almost instantly as flying shards of glass and debris pierced his body.

Four brothers of a migrant family from northern India ran a sugarcane juice stall near the BSE. The fifth brother returned shortly after the blast to find his siblings lying in a pool of blood.

Raju, an upma vendor from Mandya in Karnataka; Ashok Singh and Kamla Singh from UP who had a lassi stall; Guddu Paav-bhaji Wala, who was a big hit with the stock brokers: all migrants who had come to Bombay with hopes and dreams died in the blast.

Rita Dennis, who worked at the Graphica Printers Office close to the BSE, had decided to go down and buy the afternoon papers herself instead of sending the peon as she usually did. She didn’t live to read it. This blast caused the death of 84 people; as many as 217 were injured, some severely.

Masjid Bunder

At 2.15 p.m., a bomb went off in the middle of Bombay’s largest wholesale market for grain and spice, at Narsi Natha Street in Katha Bazaar, near Masjid Bunder. This is perhaps the most congested area in the city, where trucks, handcarts and pedestrians jostle for space in the narrow streets. Two cabs, parked side by side, suddenly went up in a ball of fire.

A teenager and his father were passing by when they got caught in the explosion. The father died on the spot. The boy’s lungs were shattered. Five people were killed in this blast, and sixteen injured.

Nariman Point

At 2.25 p.m., a car bomb had exploded in the portico of the high-rise Air- India building, about a kilometre from the High Court. The Air-India building is near Nariman Point, south Bombay’s most elite business district where major international companies, foreign banks and consulates are located. The Bank of Oman branch on the ground floor of the building, outside which the blast had occurred, was gutted. Twenty people were killed in this blast, and eighty-seven injured. The toll was rising at frightening speed.

Dadar

At 2.30 p.m., a blast shook Lucky Petrol Pump adjacent to Sena Bhavan at Dadar in the centre of the city. Four people died and fifty were injured in the explosion.

John Thomas, an employee of New Mika laminates near Worli, was killed. He had called his wife Sophaiya when he heard about the blast at the BSE, before he left his Worli office to deliver a cheque at Indian Oil Corporation at Sewri, to reassure her. After making the delivery, he had gone to the petrol pump to refuel his Hero Honda motorcycle before he returned to the office. He had just crossed the petrol pump to the other side, near Sena Bhavan, an attendant said. Thomas could be identified only by the crucifix on his gold chain and his wedding ring.

Worli Blast

At 2.55 p.m., a bomb seemed to go off in a crowded double-decker BEST bus outside the regional passport office at Worli. It was so powerful that the five ton bus was lifted into the air, and the upper deck blown into the hutment colony of Nehru nagar. Residents panicked as pieces of metal and bodies rained down on them. There were no survivors on board; not even the bodies could be identified.

The sights were gruesome, a paanwala’s head was severed from his torso and deposited on the counter in front of him. The body of Neogi, manager of the Bata shop, was found sandwiched between two walls that collapsed with each other. Flying shrapnel was lodged in the stomach of Darius Khavarian, who had come from Iran to see his brother Minocher, owner of the Asian Stores and Restaurant. This was to be the deadliest of the blasts, killing 113 and injuring 227.

After the blast at Worli, there were five more explosions, all of which took place at intervals of approximately ten minutes. The Zaveri bazaar bomb went off at 3.05 p.m., the Plaza Cinema crumbled at 3.15 p.m., and then the dance the death continued in the suburbs. Ten explosions rocked Bombay that day, taking place with almost metronomic precision at short intervals. Between 1.28 and 3.35 p.m. bombs had gone off across Bombay, the first time any city in the world was subject to serial blasts.

The explosions of 12 March had their origins in an event that had occurred three months earlier in a small town 1,300 kilometres to the northeast: The destruction of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. As a result Bombay witnessed two spells of rioting, from 6 to 12 December 1992, and from 7 to 16 January 1993. According to the Sri Krishna Commission Report, commissioned by the government, 900 people died (575 Muslims, 275 Hindus) and 2,036 (1,105 Muslims, 893 Hindus) were injured in these riots.

The Conspiracy

As he drove his off-white Toyota down the expressway in Dubai in end December 1992, Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razak Memon, called Tiger by his associates, was still smouldering as he remembered how his office had been set ablaze earlier that month during the Bombay riots. Now he was in distant UAE where a group of men had come together to plot retribution against an entire nation for the acts of a handful.

Tiger spoke up. ‘Bombay is the pride of India, its financial nerve centre. Why not display our might and power there? Any attack on Bombay will have international repercussions. The government will be shaken. Let us plan to take over Bombay.’

There were two initial steps in the complex operations: first, to secure the arms and armaments and transport them to Bombay, and second to recruit Muslim youths from Bombay and train them to carry on the bombings. It was felt that only Tiger had the leadership skills and contacts necessary to find the youths, train them, brief them and lead them throughout the mission.

On 15 January 1993, Dawood Phanse was summoned by Tiger. ‘Some extremely important and sensitive goods are supposed to land,’ Tiger told him, and asked him to personally handle the landing operations. The goods would be shipped from Dubai and would land at Mhasla.

‘Who is going to ship the goods?’ ‘Dawood Bhai.’ (Dawood Ibrahim) ‘How can we make sure that they are Dawood bhai’s goods?’ Phanse asked. ‘What if I arrange for you to meet Dawood bhai?’

Dubai Meeting

Tiger arranged for Phanse’s meeting with Dawood in Dubai…On 21 January, Tiger picked up Phanse from the hotel and took him in a taxi to the White House… As minutes ticked by, Phanse nervousness increased. Suddenly he sensed movement behind him. Both Tiger and Dawood were standing in the rooms watching him.

‘I thought you wanted some assurance that this is my operation. Be assured this has my whole-hearted support.’ ‘But can I ask…I… just wanted to know—what will be in that cargo?’ ‘It will have some chemicals. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid handsomely for your services.’

That was the end of the meeting. Dawood’s personal assurance was sufficient for Phanse.

The mammoth trial in the serial blasts case, which started on 30 June 1995, still drones on. The CBI formally closed its case in 2001 after examining 684 witnesses. The document transcribing the evidence runs into 13,000 pages, in answer to 38,070 questions put to the accused. There are additional 2,500 documents produced as exhibits.

S. Hussain Zaidi works with Mid-day. He was earlier with The Indian Express