The Conspiracy Unravels
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SPECIAL REPORTS BOMBAY BLASTS The Conspiracy Unravels In piecing together the plot, investigators confirm the key part played by Dawood Ibrahim and find that Pakistan's role went way beyond merely training the saboteurs advanced the operation to March 12. By M. RAHMAN and RAHUL PATHAK These chunks of information are the intangible gains of an HREE months after a series of bombs rained fire and intensive investigation. The tangible trophies are no less death over Bombay, the smoke-screen that had hung impressive. The Bombay Police has already arrested 103 Tover the conspiracy is beginning to lift. The officials who people involved in the blasts and seized enough arsenal to had spent their days and nights scratching for evidence and equip an army platoon—63 AK-56 rifles, 40,000 rounds of sifting for clues are now getting a glimpse of not just the ammunition, over 450 hand grenades, more than 3.5 tonnes mechanics of the operation but its logistics and planning as of RDX plastic explosive and 1,100 detonators. Their counter- well. And as the evidence gathered by the Bombay Police is parts in the Maharashtra State Police have, simultaneously, woven into the mass of information lying with the intelligence arrested 70 people, including some policemen and customs agencies, many of the theories which were bandied about officials for their involvement in the landing of explosives and immediately after the blasts need to be radically revised. weapons on the Konkan coast. j[ The explosives were neither American left-overs in Af- New revelations have surfaced following the arrest of two ghanistan, nor surplus stock in the Pakistani bomb-yards. key conspirators. They are Mulchand Shah, a major havala Dawood Ibrahim was not merely a shadowy figure pulling operator through whom Memon procured his funds, and remote strings from distant shores, but an active participant in Mohammed Usman, an exporter who, investigators say, is the operation. The conspiracy, investigators now surmise, part of the inner circle of saboteurs. Shah admits arranging was aimed at stirring up communal violence and polarising Rs 6 crore from abroad for Memon to set his scheme rolling. the country. It was a Pakistani national who arranged for the Apart from Bombay, Surat and cities in Uttar Pradesh were RDX consignment that devastated Bombay, from an Austrian also targeted for bomb attacks. Says Amarjeet Singh Samra, company. The bomb blasts were actually planned to take police commissioner of Bombay: "We now have a much place in late April around Shivaji Jayanti, but Tiger Memon clearer picture of the entire operation. It basically involved a NEW FINDINGS ti A smuggler arrested for the blasts has admitted that he was taken by Tiger Memon to Dubai to meet Dawood for instructions on landing the explosives. I 2. Interpol has traced the origin of the RDX to an Austrian firm. The mart who arranged the consignment has been identified as a Pakistani who once worked for the Austrian firm. 4, The RDX never landed in Dubai but was trans-shipped 30 km off the Pakistan coast to Raigad. A senior customs official involved was arrested. 5. Grenades that arrived for rioting were made by a Pakistani firm. <S» Memon's three gang members, who had the charge of executing the blasts, have been identified. They fled via Nepal. Twelve detained persons have provided details of training in Pakistan for the operation. They were among the 35 who went there. - The havala operator who transferred funds to finance the blasts from abroad has been arrested. 9. The wider conspiracy was aimed at arming saboteurs with weapons and grenades to systematically organise riots and kill VVIPS. 1O. Detailed information has been passed on to the US for the purpose of getting Pakistan declared a terrorist state. 42 INDIAT hardcore group led by Tiger Memon, and a larger peripheral It was at Apart from Bombay, group responsible for financing, transporting, and so on." this point that Usman has testified that the first landing of AK-56 rifles Dawood Ibra- ^ Surat and Uttar and hand-grenades took place on January 9 in Raigad district, him chose to step south of Bombay along with a consignment of silver. This out of the shadows and ^ Pradesh were was the time when unprecedented communal violence spon- supervise the opera- t also on the sored by the Shiv Sena was at its height. The Sainiks were tion himself. exacting revenge for the killing of Hindus on the streets Daud Phanse from Raigad K saboteurs' of Muslim-majority areas by gangsters acting as agents pro- district, a landing agent for contra- vocateurs. This was exactly the way that Memon's gang and band goods, has admitted that Tiger --'• hit list. their foreign sponsors wanted and, indeed, expected them to Memon personally took him to Dubai to react in anticipation of a wider communal backlash through- meet Dawood. Phanse, who is in his 40s, out the country. says the meeting took place in January. The underworld boss instructed him to arrange for N another breakthrough, the police have picked up 10 men the landing of explosives at Shekadi village in involved in the provocative killings on January 6 and 7. Says February. "Humko bhi kuch karke dikhana hai (We too ISamra: "In January, the conspirators made a much smaller have to do something)," Dawood is reported to have said. It investment (of arms and violence), but the Sainiks who rioted was Phanse's first and only meeting with Dawood, and since played right into their hands.'' Encouraged by the response, the he is not a major figure in the smuggling world in any way, it conspirators were fully confident of the outcome of their grand remains a mystery why he should have been specially strike in which they wanted to sabotage oil, naval and summoned to Dubai. Said a police officer: "Phanse isn't even government installations and eliminate various VIPS once the educated and it isn't clear why Dawood should want to meet communal disturbances they anticipated had begun. him. But he did identify Dawood as the man he met in Dubai The conspirators moved on two fronts—arranging for from photographs we showed him." the explosives and recruiting the saboteurs. Simultaneous- Home Ministry officials handling the investigation say ly, firearms were being smuggled to that Dawood's motives are clearer now. follow the explosions with an even "With his money and muscle, he fancied deadlier result in the guise of rioting. Anwar Ahmed and.., himself as the protector of his commu- Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim nity. When it was targeted during the worked in tandem to ensure that every- riots, his name was mud. He had to thing went smoothly. somehow regain his pride, even it if was The original theory was that the RDX at the expense of losing his investments used in Bombay was of Czech or US in the country," says a senior official. origin. It was analysed without much Investigators had initially thought hope, as establishing either of these that the explosive came to Raigad via brands would have proved nothing. Dubai. And they were intrigued that the There is so much of these two brands authorities there—who are paranoid in circulation that it would have about anything bigger than a fire- been impossible to trace the particu- cracker—should have allowed tonnes of lar consignment and the route it took RDX to be stored. It now turns out that to Bombay. the explosives never touched Dubai at Unexpectedly, with Interpol's help, all. The consignment was handed over the investigators struck gold. When an to the saboteurs in a mid-sea opera- explosive is analysed on a spectograph. tion in February, about 30 km off the it shows different 'bands' and 'ribbons' Pakistani coast. for each manufacturer. These are like The conspirators certainly did not fingerprints that can only belong to a ...Javed Chikna... leave anything to chance. A secret con- particular brand. The manufacturers ference was held in the first week of can distort or erase these 'ribbons' in February. Among those who attended the explosive to muddy the trail when the meeting were Tiger Memon and a they are used for covert and clandes- senior customs officer, who has since tine operations. been arrested. But, investigators say, the The fingerprint of the RDX used key figure who had sneaked into Bom- in Bombay stood out loud and clear. bay for an evening to finalise the details This particular brand had come from of the operation was none other than an Austrian manufacturer, according Dawood Ibrahim himself. to investigators. As it turned out, the However, one crucial bit—the ac- consignment had been contracted by a tual date when the bombs exploded— Pakistani national who, investigators was not according to the original plan. found, is a former employee of the After prolonged interrogation of sus- company. A fake end-user certificate pects, the police learned that the blasts had been used to dupe the Austrian were actually meant to coincide with company into believing that the RDX was Shivaji Jayanti on April 24. being used for some other purpose. But Memon advanced the date by Once the explosive had been ob- several weeks. One reason for this, say tained, it had to be smuggled into India. ...executed the blasts investigators, is that Gul Mohammed 43 SPECIAL REPORTS ASHESH SHAH Noor Mohammed Shaikh, a young mar- ble-shop owner who underwent train- ing in Pakistan, suffered qualms about being part of a violent conspiracy and surrendered himself to the police on March 9. But Gul Mohammed did not know details of the RDX plan—he was only told that he could retaliate (his family had suffered in the January riots) in a fresh surge of violence.