1993 Mumbai blasts: 30 years on, scar of terror on Indian megacity still cuts deep

Sunday (March 12) marks the 30th anniversary of the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Bombay (Mumbai city's official name before 1995), which ripped apart India's financial hub and resulted in hundreds of fatalities in the hands of the dreaded terror attacks.

As India looks back at that terrible day 30 years ago, some wounds remain unhealed. But Mumbaikars (the local people of Mumbai) have confronted the fear with courage. There were a total of 12 terrorist bomb blasts on March 12, 1993, that occurred in the city in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

The blasts took the lives of 257 people and injuredthousands of others.

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It all started with an explosives-packed automobile which blew off in the basement of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building at around 1:30 in the afternoon on March 12. The explosions shocked the city's most crowded places and lasted for a little over two hours, from 1:30 pm to 3:40 pm.

There was panic and confusion everywhere. The injured were rushed to the hospitals which were overcrowded in the aftermath of dozens of blasts on that fateful day, which later came to be known as “Black Friday”. Many still continue to battle the horrors of that day and the dark memories still haunt them.

Dawood Ibrahim, one of India's most sought criminals was the mastermind behind the 1993 Mumbai blasts. He is known to have foundedthe criminal syndicate D-Company in Bombay in the 1970s. Famous actors have played the notorious gangster in several films and television shows that were inspired by him. Many Indian films detail the 1993 terror blasts and ensuing police inquiry.

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But Dawood Ibrahim and another gangster Tiger Memon, the 1993 explosion's masterminds, were able to elude the police and other enforcement agencies. Tiger Memon's real name is Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razzaq Memon, but he is popularly known by his nickname.

Yakub Memon, the brother of Tiger Memon, was imprisoned in 1994. He was found guilty of conspiring, organising and funding training, and buying cars used for the bombings. He was convicted and awarded a death sentence in July 2007. After a gruelling 14 years of agony, the Supreme Court of India, in 2013, passed the final judgement on the case and upheld an earlier death sentence for Yakub Memon.

Yakub was hanged at Nagpur Prison on July 30, 2015, at 6:35 am IST.

But sadly, Yakub's brother Tiger Memon who is the prime suspect in the 1993 Bombay blasts and is believed to have conspired with Dawood Ibrahim, continues to remain at large till date.

The investigations into the explosion also purportedly exposed the D-Company’s nexus with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

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A total of 193 of the accused were detained by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch and the Special Task Force, which was led by the Central Bureau of Investigation. A total of 140 people were put on trial; however, 17 of them passed away during the course ofthe trial. 100 of the 123 suspects who faced trial were found guilty, while 23 were acquitted.

After the attacks, several of the conspirators who managed to escape India were apprehended and sent back.

Gangster Abu Salem was one of them who was extradited to India from Portugal. In 2017, the special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court convicted six men, including Salem, for the blasts.

Salem is currently serving multiple life sentences in separate cases.

The death penalty was awarded to12 of them. One more passed away from illness, while the Supreme Court of India reduced 10 more death sentences to life in prison.

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