Black Friday

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  ‘The noise was unlike any other I had ever heard,’ says Zende. He scrambled towards the exit, like hundreds of others streaming out of the hotel, ignoring the searing pain in his ear. It was only after he saw the patches of blood on his pillow the following morning that he realized something was amiss. A visit to the doctor confirmed that his eardrum had been ruptured by the blast. The blast turned Zende into a pill-popping high-blood pressure patient. He has been visiting the doctor nearly every week since then. Loud noises terrify him and he spends every Diwali indoors.

  There’s no time to cry in Ashalata Phatak’s one-room first-floor tenement in the Kranti Sadan chawl in Prabhadevi, central Bombay. Losing her husband Prakash Phatak in the blasts seems almost as long ago as her wedding, twenty-five years ago. This frail and diminutive forty-year-old is too busy grappling with the more immediate problems of educating and fending for her three children: Sarita (twenty-two), Santosh (nineteen) and Sandesh (seventeen).

  On 12 March 1993, Ashalata had just gone to sleep after lunch. Prakash was away at work in the Saraswat Bank near the passport office at Worli, where he had been a peon for twenty years. She remembers waking up with a start at around 2.30 p.m. after hearing a loud noise which shook the entire building. She rushed out to the gallery of her house where dozens of residents had gathered to see what had happened. Thick black smoke billowed skywards from the direction of Dadar. Ten minutes later, there was another sound from the opposite direction, from Worli. As she was to find out later, this was the blast that killed Prakash as he was going to a nearby restaurant for lunch. She began worrying about Prakash, but friends advised her not to leave the house.

  She huddled at home with her children, waiting for news. This was to come only on the following morning when she got a call from the KEM Hospital at Parel. ‘I could identify him only from his clothes. The rest of his body was covered by deep wounds and was burned black, almost like it had been roasted in a fire.’

  Ashalata didn’t know how it happened and didn’t bother to find out. After the seemingly endless days spent grieving over his death, she started lobbying for her husband’s job at the bank to support her children. ‘I discovered there was no use crying. It doesn’t help for very long. And then there were the children to look after,’ she says resolutely. She got the job with help from the bank union after a year of wrangling. She now works as a peon in the Dadar branch.

  ‘Why my husband? What wrong had he done?’ she asks plaintively, echoing the feelings of hundreds of families across the city. ‘So many buildings destroyed, so many people killed. The people who did this will never rest in peace.’

  Radheshayam Potdar, a cloth merchant in Bombay’s densely populated Kalbadevi business district, was at his shop that afternoon when news of the blasts reached him. Shutters were downed within minutes and the market cleared out. Potdar himself reached home at around 4 p.m.

  A little while later there was a phone call. His second son, twenty-one-year-old Prashant, had been injured. Radheshayam was asked to come to GT Hospital. The police had got the phone number through a railway pass they found on Prashant. ‘I reached there nearly an hour later. There were scores of bodies piled there, my son’s amongst them.’

  Prashant was studying to become a chartered accountant like his elder brother Pradeep and had been working with a firm of accountants in Flora Fountain for three years. He and seven friends had gone for lunch near the BSE that afternoon. All of them were injured, two died.

  The Potdar family is still trying to cope with the loss of the bright and cricket-crazy Prashant. On 12 March each year they perform the ritual of feeding five Brahmins.

  The thought of revenge has long left Radheshayam, though he thinks he would have been able to give the trial judge quite an earful. The patriarch believes the policies of political parties and the demolition of the Babri Masjid were directly responsible for the bomb blasts. As for punishing the accused, that seems so far away. ‘Even the murderers of Rajiv Gandhi are yet to be punished eight years after they killed him,’ he says. ‘And Prashant was just an ordinary person.’

  It was a quirk of fate that brought Shakuntala and Tukaram Sorte to the Air-India building that Friday. They were to meet Ashok Chaturvedi, an old family friend who always met up with them when he was in Bombay.

  When the bomb exploded, all three were seriously injured, and Chaturvedi died soon after. Some time later, a passer-by, Clifford, who worked for the Oberoi hotel adjacent to the Air-India building, was asked by the driver of an Ambassador where he should take the injured couple dumped in his car by some anxious members of the public. Clifford hopped in and directed him to the Bombay Hospital.

  He helped to get Shakuntala and Tukaram admitted and stayed on to take his home phone numbers from Tukaram. The couple was admitted in separate wards so neither knew about the other’s condition.

  Their daughter Namrata, twenty, heard about a bomb blast at VT around 4 p.m. Namrata went to a neighbour’s house to call her mother’s office to check that she had not been anywhere near VT at that time as she knew about the lunch appointment with Chaturvedi. Shakuntala Sorte was the head clerk in the government salt department. Her office was at Ballard Pier. Namrata was told that her mother had not come back. She left a message, asking her mother to call her back.

  The phone rang again only between 5.30 and 6 p.m. It was Clifford. ‘He told me that my father had been injured in the bomb explosion and was at the Bombay Hospital ... I thought he must have just got hurt while passing by, a few bruises ...’ Her neighbours rushed to the hospital, but told her and her two teenaged siblings to stay behind. At 8 p.m., they called to say that her mother had also been injured. ‘I did not worry too much. Aai and Baba were together, so he would take care of her. He was very capable and efficient.’ Fifty-seven-year-old Tukaram Sorte worked for the BMC.

  When Namrata went to the hospital the following morning, her father had died. She could not meet her mother either. ‘I was afraid to meet her. I didn’t want to tell her about Baba.’

  Shakuntala kept asking the nurse in her ward about her husband. On the night of 14 March, the day her husband was cremated, she dreamt of him. ‘He came in my dream and told me that they had cremated him and wanted to know whether I was planning to stay back or go with him,’ she told the nurse accusingly for they had not told her of his death. She feared that she too would not survive, and handed over all the jewellery she was wearing—she had dressed in her best for the luncheon—to the nurse, requesting that it be given to Namrata. After that she lapsed into unconsciousness.

  On 15 March, Namrata finally decided to visit her mother. It was her parents’ wedding anniversary, and her sister Yogeeta’s nineteenth birthday. ‘I was shocked to see the state she was in. In the ICU, I passed by her but didn’t recognize her. Her scarred, swollen face seemed familiar. Her eyes were closed and there were small tubes running through her mouth. The nurse asked me if I wanted the tubes removed so that she could speak to me. I thought that would disturb her. Later I wished I had grabbed that last chance.’

  Outside the ICU, she met Clifford. As they were speaking, her mother died. But her aunt and uncle did not tell her. The following morning, she wanted to see her mother again. Her aunt forced her to eat breakfast and they drove to the hospital. It was only when they were in the hospital that she realized what had happened.

  She had to tell her brother Vinod and sister Yogeeta. Yogeeta, the youngest and her mother’s pet, took it very badly. Later she attempted suicide several times.

  Yogeeta is still trying to come to terms with the tragedy. She taught for a while in a college, and is now doing computer courses. Namrata works with her father’s old employers, the BMC, and has married a childhood friend. She hopes to have a baby soon. Vinod got his mother’s job in the salt department. He too is married, and has a baby. They are still in touch with Clifford, who always comes over on 12 March.

  Shyam Sundar Shroff of the RBI was well known in certain circles because he had bu
sted a soiled notes recycling racket in Bangalore in 1992, which involved crores of rupees and the patronage of the political masters of Karnataka at the time. As a result, there was even an attempt on his life. After he was stabbed, the newspapers publicized his story, and many praised his work, including the Governor of Karnataka. As reward, his request for a transfer to Bombay was granted.

  On 12 March, he was asked by an officer to do an unscheduled inspection at the Bank of Oman at the Air-India building. That was his last assignment.

  For his widow Savithri, his death was only the beginning of a nightmare. The RBI had told her that she could retain their huge RBI flat for another seven years. However, she then turned down an RBI job as a clerk. She was a teacher at the Sacred Heart High School, Worli, and loved children and teaching. The RBI asked her to move out of the flat. She had to share a small chawl with a friend who offered her space. Her possessions were all locked away in a godown. One son, a student at Stanford University, had to discontinue his studies because there was no money. Another son was studying marine engineering in Calcutta. Finally, she packed her bags and moved to Calcutta to be with him.

  Author’s Note

  I always thought that it is easier to write non-fiction than fiction. After all, in non-fiction, you are dealing with a story that already exists, you don’t have to invent the twists and turns. However, the past four years of researching and making sense of the mammoth jigsaw puzzle that is the Bombay serial blasts has shown me that there is more to it than that.

  For Black Friday I did as much research as possible and met as many people as I could. Among my main sources were police documents, government records, confessional statements of the accused, CBI dossiers or newspaper reports of that time. The problem with the use of confessional statements as a source is that the veracity of the statement may be questioned, and it may be later stated that it was made under duress.

  I have tried my best to be judicious to each character in the book, even those who tend to be seen in black and white in popular perception. I have tried to show things from their perspective as well, based on information gathered. All information is to the best of my knowledge; according to the information I have garnered in good faith and constitutes fair reporting to the best of my ability. Among the most contentious characters are Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, and here I have tried to get at the facts as far as possible. For example, though it is widely assumed that Dawood Ibrahim was responsible for the blasts, I have recorded only the evidence I have come across in the course of the investigations. As the case against Tiger Memon was much better recorded, the book reflects that.

  Much of the story is culled from the case presented by the prosecution in the trial as the prime sources of information are the chargesheet in the case filed by the police and the statements of the accused. The prosecution did not intend to tell the entire story in their chargesheets; rather information was given in bits and pieces as far as was necessary for their case. More amplification was provided in some instances by the supplementary chargesheets filed by the CBI. It was left to a penpusher like me to make sense of those documents and narrate the story in all its drama and excitement.

  This book is not a product of imagination. Where conversations have been recreated, I have tried to do this with reasonable verisimilitude given the situations and characters involved.

  The manuscript has been checked for factual errors or incorrect reportage by my lawyer friends and officers from the CBI Special Task Force assigned to the bomb blasts case. However, if any mistakes remain, they are mine alone.

  As a journalist I have learnt to raise questions and not to judge; that it is for the reader to decide. I have tried to follow the same principle in this book.

  Epilogue

  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 last witness to depose was the chief investigating officer, CBI’s O.P. Chatwal. The document transcribing the evidence runs into over 13,000 pages, in answer to 38,070 questions put to the accused. There are an additional 2,500 documents produced as exhibits.

  The defence closed its case on 9 August 2002. After the prosecution rebuttal, it will be time for the verdict. It is believed that this will be in late 2002 or early 2003.

  When the trial had started, there had been 195 charge sheeted, of whom forty-four were then absconding. Today there are 124 accused, of whom thirty-four are still in custody, while the rest, including Sanjay Dutt, are on bail. Tiger Memon, his brother Ayub, and their wives are among those who are still absconding. Abu Asim Azmi and Amjad Mehr Baksh were discharged by the Supreme Court while co-accused Riaz Khatri jumped bail. Judge Patel had discharged twenty-six of the accused, who had been charged for unloading the RDX, due to lack of evidence. Judge Kode, who took over the trial in 1996, discharged Syed Javed Hussain. Two others, Hamid Dafedar and Harba Hari Khopatkar, passed away. Seven accused—Salim Kurla, Majeed Khan, Shakil Ahmed, Mohammed Jindran, Hanif Kadawala, Akbar Abu Sama Khan, Mohammed Latif—were killed either by rival gangsters or in police encounters. Two of the accused—Badshah Khan and Mohammed Umar Khatlab—turned approvers. They stepped into the witness box in June 1995 and unfolded the prosecution story that Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon had masterminded the blasts in the aftermath of the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya.

  ■

  Of the investigating officers in the case, Samra retired as DG, Maharashtra police; M.N. Singh is now the Bombay police commissioner, and Maria was promoted to DIG, and is currently the commissioner of railway police. Judge J.N. Patel became a High Court judge and was transferred to Nagpur in 1996.

  Sanjay Dutt has gone on to do many successful roles in Bollywood. In December 2001, at a TADA court hearing, he disowned the confessional statement made by him to the police while he was in custody, and said he was forced to sign a document following an assurance given by them. He has denied that he ever owned an AK-56.

  Dawood Ibrahim now lives in Karachi, where he has a palatial house spread over 6,000 square yards, with a pool, tennis courts, a snooker room and a gym with the most sophisticated equipment. He wears designer clothes and a Rs 50-lakh Patek Phillipe wristwatch, drives a top-of-the-line Mercedes and luxurious four-wheel drives, and showers money on his many women. He does not shirk his obligations: a former Bollywood actress, with whom he had a child, is reportedly still being supported by him.

  His daily regimen is kingly: his day begins in the afternoon with a swim and leisurely breakfast after which he gives his employees an audience. There may be cricket or snooker later; the evening is for drinks, mujras and gambling. He and his men have made huge investments in property, and are major players on the bourse and hundi, the parallel credit system. His other businesses include smuggling gold and drugs and allegedly match-fixing. Businessmen approach him to settle disputes. His connection with the blasts was never actually proved.

  Tiger Memon too today lives in Karachi. But, according to Usman Majid, formerly of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front, he is no longer happy there. Usman met Tiger in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, when he was working for the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, to raise funds. He first met Tiger in late 1993. At the end of that year, to counteract the growing pressure on Pakistan to send him back to India, Tiger allegedly returned to Muzaffarabad to videotape a mock press conference to prove that he was still in India. Usman became close to Tiger, who told him stories of his lavish house in Karachi, the Rs 1.5 crore he had received to start a business, and the three cars he owned, including a Toyota. However, after his brother Yaqub returned to India, the ISI believed that Tiger had a hand in facilitating Yaqub’s return. As a result, his cars were withdrawn, and his cash inflow stopped. He tried to move to Peshawar and Dubai, but security concerns compelled him to return to Pakistan where, according to Usman, he is today a slave of the ISI. Usman believes that Tiger’s decision to carry the serial bombing
s was impulsive, and that he did not realize that he would spend the rest of his life a hunted man.

  The last time Usman met Tiger was in January 1995. Tiger was back in business by then, but Usman sensed that he was unhappy with the way things had gone. He was then negotiating to set up the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front (JKIF). He was to provide the JKIF with safehouses and guides in Nepal and Gujarat through his network, enabling them to operate securely in northern and western India. However, this plan did not work out.

  Usman also adds that when the initial plan to bomb Bombay was formulated, it was suggested that seven other cities—including New Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai and Ahmedabad—be bombed as well. However, due to logistical problems, this did not work out.

  Sources

  This is a work of non-fiction based on four years of research and investigation. Nowhere have the facts been tampered with. Some of the dialogues have been restructured and the precise sequence of events reconstructed, but nowhere do they deviate from recorded fact. I have briefly outlined the principal sources below.

  The primary sources of information are the chargesheet filed in court by the Bombay police, the supplementary chargesheets filed by the CBI, the records of court proceedings in the case, the confessional statements of the accused, and the many FIRs filed in the case. I have read the confessional statements of all 145 of the accused, though some have been more useful than others.

  I have also made extensive use of newspaper and magazine reports covering the blasts and their aftermath, especially the Times of India, the Indian Express, Mid-day, the Afternoon Despatch & Courier, the Gujarati newspaper Janmabhoomi, and the weeklies India Today and Sunday. Also, I have been a crime reporter for several years, and there is much information that I have gathered over the years while covering stories about the Bombay underworld.