Black Friday

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  The stalemate dragged on until March. In a report to the High Court, Patel had declared that for security reasons the jail premises were the best place to hold the trial. The government stated it was impossible for them to do more, the defence counsel argued that they could not work in such a small space, and Patel supported their contention that the space was inadequate. At the 24 March hearing, Patel declared that he would not proceed with the trial until the issue was satisfactorily resolved. The next hearing was on 12 April at the City Civil and Sessions Court, and Patel stated that the trial would continue there until the jail courtroom was extended and had a public address system.

  Ujwal Nikam (Courtesy Mid-day)

  Justice H.H. Kantharia and Justice Vishnu Sahai, the judges of the divisional bench of the High Court, passed an order that the trial be begun at the Bombay Central Jail premises at Arthur Road and be concluded as quickly as possible. However, on 12 April at the first hearing, the facilities were found to be inadequate. Nikam came under sharp criticism for not making the list of prosecution witnesses available to the defence lawyers. The prosecutor said he was reluctant to do so as there was reasonable apprehension about the threat to their lives. He stated several times that he was ready to open the trial but the defence team said that since it was a historical trial there was need to proceed with caution. Patel declared that the trial would begin from 6 June.

  However, even as the courtroom issue was resolved, wrangling broke out over a new issue. On 4 May, six defence lawyers—Jaisinghani, Reshma Ruparel, Usman Wanjara, S.M. Oak, Mahesh Jethmalani and Sonia Sohani—who between them represented over a hundred defendants, stated that their clients had expressed apprehension about getting a fair trial in Patel’s court. In their joint application seeking his discharge from the case, the lawyers asserted that they felt that they would not get the requisite relief for their clients. This application roused a storm of controversy. Nikam called the charge a conspiracy to delay the trial, and charged the six complainants with abetting their clients. Jaisinghani refused to enumerate their specific complaints and said these would be recounted before the Supreme Court. Should the Supreme Court find their grievances invalid, they would return to Patel’s court in all good faith.

  Patel found himself under immense pressure. The trial was scheduled to commence. The matter was finally resolved when Patel summoned all the defendents and asked them whether they had faith in his impartiality. When they declared they did, he took the six lawyers who had filed the application to task and barred them from appearing before him. The trial finally commenced on 30 June.

  On 4 July, Sanjay’s bail application was heard. The monsoons were in full swing, but journalists had gathered to hear the outcome of this much postponed bail application. Sanjay’s lawyer C.B. Wadhwa had warned him that the prosecution would seek cancellation of his bail, but assured him that his chances were good. The tension level in the court, after all the drama of the past few weeks, was high.

  Patel broke the silence. ‘I hereby order that Sanjay Dutt’s interim bail stands cancelled and he be taken into judicial custody immediately.’

  Sanjay half rose. Wadhwa protested that the CBI never opposed Sanjay being granted bail and the judge could at least grant him a stay for two weeks so that Sanjay could appeal.

  ‘There is no question of staying the order and also no way that he can be given few days to file an appeal unless there is a legal provision for that.’ Patel also rejected an oral bail application and left the courtroom.

  Ashen-faced, Sanjay was taken away in the police van to Thane prison.

  ■

  Short, stockily built, clean-shaven and bespectacled, advocate Niteen Pradhan’s thoroughness, meticulous preparation and enthusiasm impressed all. In the brief time that he was involved in the case, he attracted more media attention than any of the other lawyers involved. In February 1992 he had shot to fame for getting an acquittal for the former chief minister of Maharashtra, A.R. Antulay, accused of allotting cement quotas to builders in lieu of funds for a public trust he had created.

  Pradhan’s association with the blasts case began in May 1994, when builder Mohammed Jindran hired him. Gradually, however, he was asked by other accused to defend them.

  In his submissions in the TADA court on 8 August, Pradhan argued that the bomb blast cases could not be considered one consolidated terrorist act. He believed it was constituted of several different cases. The Dighi landing, Sanjay Dutt’s alleged purchase of the AK-56, the conspiracy for the blasts in Dubai, Bombay and Pakistan, the actual blasts, the two seizures of the ammunitions and RDX from Nagla Bunder and Mumbra, and other such seizures were all separate cases. He argued that the division of the cases would facilitate the trial, and ensure that the accused were distinguished according to the severity of their crime and the level of their involvement.

  Pradhan argued that the bomb blasts should not be interpreted as an act against the government, but against the Hindu community; that they were not a terrorist attack but were an outcome of communal strife. This line of argument earned Pradhan the ire of some fundamentalist Hindu organiza-tions. The Patit Pawan Sanghatana, a Pune-based organization, threatened to humiliate him publicly by blackening his face, making him sit facing backwards on a donkey and parading him through the city!

  Niteen Pradhan (Courtesy Mid-day)

  His dedication also won him followers, among whom was the Milli Council, then the only Muslim organization which was trying to help Muslims involved in the case. The Council asked him to take up the case of some more of the accused. Although severely pressed for time, Pradhan agreed. Later, there were more such requests. By 8 August 1994, he was officially representing forty-eight of the accused, the largest number represented by a single lawyer.

  Pradhan argued that the Muslims among the accused could not be charged with waging a war against the country as the prosecution alleged. Before the demolition of the Babri Masjid, none of the accused had been involved in activities that could be construed as anti-national, and even after the demolition, they had never demanded it to be rebuilt. Their ire had been directed towards the community that destroyed it, not the government. Had they demanded that the mosque be rebuilt, they could have been charged under TADA for trying to overawe the government. Pradhan argued that the accused in this case could not be likened to militant organizations like the JKLF, the Khalistanis or ULFA, because their actions had been different. If the Sikh militants in the Golden Temple who had fired on the Indian army during Operation Bluestar had not been accused of waging a war against the country, then how could these people be? Thus Pradhan managed to transform the way in which the accused were being viewed—from people trying to overthrow the state to those attacking a community.

  As a result of this line of argument, in January 1995, J.N. Patel ruled that the accused were no longer charged with sedition and waging war against the country but that they could be tried only under TADA. This was the first major victory for the accused, and for the community. It was even more gratifying that someone outside the community had supported them so strongly.

  Pradhan had been ill, and soon after this he had to be hospitalized. This compelled him to withdraw from the case, a decision perhaps reinforced by attacks from some other lawyers. In the brief time he had been associated with the case, he had changed it fundamentally.

  13

  Yaqub Memon

  By the time Yaqub Abdul Razak Memon, the third of the Memon brothers, was in his early thirties, he had already acquired the reputation of being the best read and smartest criminal that the Bombay police had ever known.

  But Yaqub’s story was unusual. Educated in English-medium schools and college, he graduated with a degree in commerce. He became a chartered accountant in 1990. His accountancy firm was quickly successful, and in 1992 he won an award for the best chartered accountant in the Memon community.

  In 1991, he launched an accounting firm called Mehta and Memon Associates, with his childhood friend Chetan Meht
a. Later there was a third partner: a fellow accountancy student Ghulam Bhoira. When this firm closed down in 1992 Yaqub started another called AR & Sons. He also set up an export firm, Tejareth International, with its office at Samrat Cooperative Society, Mahim, to export meat to the Middle East. So great was Yaqub’s financial success that he bought six flats in the Al-Hussaini building, Mahim, where Tiger owned two duplex flats. In the same year, he married Raheen in a lavish ceremony at the Islam Gymkhana, and many people from the film world attended the wedding. He and Tiger were dimetrically opposed to each other in nature. One had no compunctions about making money by illegal means; the other was suave, educated and successful through legitimate means.

  It was inevitable that there should be friction between the two most successful Memon brothers. Another source of friction was that Tiger allegedly ill-treated his wife Shabana, and had an extramarital relationship. After one particularly vicious dispute, Abdul Razak turned Tiger and Shabana out of the family flat. Shabana and her children were soon allowed to return, and Tiger too returned to the family home about a year before the blasts.

  It was Yaqub’s well-known financial acumen that made the investigators suspect his involvement in the blasts case. During the investigations, it was found that complex financial transactions had taken place through several of Tiger’s accounts, and the police assumed that Yaqub must have organized these.

  The crime branch alleged that Yaqub had remitted Rs 21,90,000 to Samir Hingora and Hanif Kadawala on 13 March 1993 to distribute to the other accused. The payment was supposedly arranged over the phone so that there were no records. During their search of the Memon flats in Al-Hussaini, the police had come across documents that showed that the family had four NRI accounts at the Turner Road, Bandra, branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). The accounts were in the names of Tiger’s brother Ayub Memon (account number 11679297-07), his wife Reshma Memon (account number 11679813-07), Tiger’s brother Suleiman’s wife Rubina Memon (account number 11979321-07) and Tiger’s wife Shabana Memon (account number 11679305-07). The police said that $61,700 was deposited in cash in the British Bank of Middle East, Dubai, from there it was transferred to Marine Midland Bank in New York, USA, and then to these accounts in HSBC. They suspected that this was an attempt to conceal the source of the money. Yaqub had the authority to handle the accounts of the entire family and they suspected that he had used this money to pay various people, including his own company. Since the entire amount was tendered at the British Bank of the Middle East in Dubai, the police thought that somebody had financed the operation, fully or at least partly, from abroad.

  The police also discovered that between December 1992 and March 1993, various accounts at the Mahim branch of the Development Cooperative Bank in the names of Tejareth International and Al-Taj Exports as well as the personal accounts of the Memon family showed heavy cash transactions. The balance in all these accounts on 12 March stood at meagre amounts. Clearly the accounts had been emptied prior to the blasts.

  All this careful financial planning made the investigators conclude that Yaqub Memon must have been involved. Accordingly, in December 1993, a reward of Rs 5 lakh was offered for anyone who had information about his whereabouts.

  On the morning of 21 July 1994, a well-dressed businessman carrying a Pakistani passport in the name of Yusuf Mohammed Ahmed sauntered through Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu. He had just got off the PIA 250 flight from Karachi. Though he looked serene, Yaqub Memon’s mind was in turmoil. For the last seventeen months, he and his family had been on the run, and the life of a fugitive was wearing him down.

  Yaqub took a taxi to Karnoli Hotel, accompanied by his cousin, Usman, who had come to receive him. They stayed at the hotel for three days. It was a time for introspection.

  The Memon family had been in Dubai on 12 March 1993. The Indian government had been putting pressure on the UAE government to repatriate them. Initially, the UAE denied the Memons were there, but eventually requested them to leave. In early April, an ISI agent escorted the family to Karachi. Each person was supplied with a Pakistani passport and a national identity card.

  Meanwhile, the Indian government had received information that the Memons were in Karachi and asked the United Nations, the US and various European countries to support their request to Pakistan that the Memons be handed over. Therefore, on 15 April the Memons, escorted by four ISI commandos, took a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, where they were accommodated in a spacious bungalow on Pattaya Road. It was virtually house arrest, as they were not allowed to leave the bungalow and were under constant surveillance. After twelve days, the protests by the Memon family grew so intense that they were brought back to Karachi again. They were housed in the Karachi Development Scheme area, popularly known as the Defence Colony and predominantly inhabited by army officials and personnel. This was a high-security zone and meant that the Memons were virtually untraceable.

  Since then things had been better. Yaqub had gone to Dubai for a week on his Pakistani passport, though always trailed by ISI men. He realized that for his family, there would never be true freedom again. There were two choices before him: he could live with this polite imprisonment by Pakistan, or he could go back to India, face a trial and try to clear his name. These were the options he had come to Kathmandu to try and think about. He decided that the best option for him was to try to make a deal with the Indian government and convince them that the rest of the Memon family was innocent. It was better to try to go back to their old lives rather than live at the mercy of the Pakistan authorities, as tales of the intelligence services killing off those who had outlived their usefulness were legion. He was especially concerned about his parents, who were now old and deserved better, and for his wife Raheen who was due to deliver their child soon. He did not want his child to live his whole life under the shadow of fear.

  On 24 July, Yaqub was back at the airport at 8.15 a.m., checking in for the 10.45 a.m. Lufthansa flight LH 765 from Kathmandu to Karachi. At about 9.15 a.m., after he had cleared immigration formalities, he went in for the security check. On opening his briefcase, the officer found two passports belonging to him—Indian and Pakistani—as well as passports of all the other members of his family, a Pakistani national identity card, and a large amount of Pakistani and US currency. The Nepal police informed Interpol and later New Delhi. The interrogation began at Kathmandu itself, and continued for three days, with both Indian and Nepali police participating, though the latter’s involvement was minimal.

  On 28 July, a blindfolded Yaqub was reportedly dropped off at Sunoli, on the border of UP, at 3 a.m. He was hungry and totally drained of energy. He was taken to Gorakhpur, about two hours by road from Sunoli, and then flown to Delhi in a special plane. On the plane, Yaqub met Union Home Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah who headed the CBI investigation in Delhi. Until now events had been more or less as Yaqub had scripted them when he placed his two passports in his briefcase.

  At 4.30 a.m., 5 August, Yaqub Memon approached New Delhi railway station. He was carrying a briefcase and a suitcase, containing various incriminating documents. There are no trains that arrived or departed at that hour, so it was a somewhat odd time to be there.

  Four CBI officers along with armed commandos were waiting. They had allegedly been tipped off that a member of the D-Company was out on the prowl. They descended upon Yaqub and whisked him away to the CBI headquarters at Lodi Road.

  Eight hours later, Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan announced the sensational arrest of one of the kingpins of the blasts in Lok Sabha: ‘We had given up hope of arresting the Memons, we thought that we had reached a dead end but now we are lucky to have arrested Yaqub Memon in Delhi.’ Later he told a crowded press conference that Yaqub had been caught with Pakistani documents including a passport, a national identity card, a driving licence and high school certificates, all in the name of Yusuf Mohammed Ahmed. He was also carrying an Indian passport. ‘This proves that there was Pakistani co
mplicity in the bomb blasts. Its role in sponsoring terrorist activities in India has been concretely established,’ said Chavan.

  Yaqub Memon was driven to Patiala House in a CBI van, preceded and followed by armed commando vans. He was produced in front of magistrate V.K. Jain, to whom he stated that apart from Tiger Memon, no other member of the Memon family was involved in the blasts. He denied the CBI account of his arrest. He stated he had been arrested on 24 July, and had been in Delhi since 28 July, where the CBI had interrogated him. The CBI counsel C.S. Sharma and SP Harishchandra Singh however stuck to their story. The proceedings lasted an hour. Yaqub was remanded to CBI custody for thirty days.

  Yaqub Memon’s arrest spread a wave of elation in Bombay. Speaking to the press on 6 August, Sharad Pawar declared that Memon’s arrest proved what he had always known: that Pakistan was involved in the conspiracy. Everyone involved in the investigation was elated, as there had been little development in the case since the filing of the chargesheet. JCP Singh too believed that the documents recovered from Yaqub established Pakistani complicity. With Memon’s evidence, it would now be possible to arrest more people involved.

  The CBI stated that they had recovered a video cassette from Yaqub, which had footage of the wedding of Taufiq Jaliawala’s daughter Rabia at Karachi, where Dawood Ibrahim and members of the ISI were honoured guests. Yaqub was also carrying three audio cassettes on which he had allegedly secretly recorded important conversations that the CBI was now transcribing and analysing.