In Just Over Two Hours and with More Then Explosions, International Terrorism with Devices of Destruction, Had Arrived In
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COVER STORY FAWZAN HUSAIN IN BO In just over two hours and with more then explosions, international terrorism with devices of destruction, had arrived in The wrecked Bombay Stock Exchange: a concerted attempt to destabilise the economy? 42 AS a metaphor for modern India. of deaths had crossed 300 with 1.500 storey building that overlooks the /-\y has no equal. As a target injured, many of them critically. In nearby port area and naval base. After JL JL for terrorists bent on sending a addition, an unestimated number, the many days since the post-budget gloom, destructive message, it is perhaps even police believe, were simply vapourised business was beginning to look up. At more so. That reality hit home with in explosions powerful enough to tear 1:26 p.m., an explosion ripped apart the crushing force last week as the city was through four levels of concrete flooring, two-level basement parking area of the shaken to its high-rise foundations by a reduce a double-decker bus to the size of building. It shattered offices two floors sequence of explosions on carefully- a mangled Maruti, fling people and above—housing bank branches—and selected and highly vulnerable targets, a debris more than a hundred feet away, moved outward to engulf a crowd of majority of them the most visible sym- and shatter window panes at four times share application form hawkers, pass- bols of the city's status as the country's that distance. ersby and roadside food sellers getting financial and commercial nerve centre. "I can't believe what is happening to ready to serve a lunch-time crowd. For a metropolis that had barely this city," says Alyque Padamsee, ad- "It was like an atom bomb during recovered from the communal frenzy man, theatre personality and a member Diwali, only a million times more that took over 600 lives in December of an independent city peace committee powerful," says Arjun Marfatia, a Ba- and January, the latest disaster came formed after the riots. "We used to roda-based broker who was visiting the like a series of frenzied hammer blows. In believe^ that something like this could exchange at that time. Marfatia, who the space of just over two-and-a-half never'happen here. Now we know that was near the ring when the explosion hours on a Friday afternoon, interna- anything can happen." came, saw smoke billowing out of the tional terrorism, in its most macabre In its gruesome totality, it was a staircases and flames beginning to reach and frightening form, rampaged nightmare come true on a much more MADHU KAPPARATH through Bombay, shattering buildings horrific scale than anything conjured and taking a deadly toll of human lives. up by the city's violence-oriented movie Even the traditional targets of terror- makers. Even for a country by now ist bombs—Lebanon, London, Ireland, hardened to terrorist strikes and com- Germany in the late '70s, and New York munal mayhem, the cold-blooded, clini- earlier this month, have never been cal and perfectly-planned explosions victim to this kind of sequential bomb- seemed to be the ultimate act of insanity. ings on a single day and with such a There were a few minutes left for massive body count. trading to end at the annexe of the Two days after Black Friday, the tally Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), a 29- Rescue efforts at the Stock Exchange: a combination of remarkable grit and steady nerves COVER STORY out in the darkness—the power supply economy"—the explosion at Century had blinked out. He fought his way out of Bazar in Worli, was the most visibly THE CLUES a side entrance along with about 8,000 destructive. At 2:58 p.m., a double- people who normally throng the build- decker bus run by Bombay's transport The leads on which investiga- ing during business hours. authority BEST, ran over a pot-hole tions now depend: The explosive device, which investi- which, according to investigators, had a 1. Bombs went off in the gators say was placed in a car in the plastic pressure-based explosive device, rooms of Hotel Sea Rock and the basement parking area and activated by which blew the bus to bits. Thirty people Centaur hotels at Juhu and Santa a timer device (see following pages), are estimated to have died inside the bus, Cruz. In what could indicate a claimed at least 50 lives, and injured and the blast decimated three nearby linking pattern, at all three hotels about 200 people. Barely nine minutes apartment buildings, besides flattening there were occupants who had later, another explosion rocked the passersby and vehicles with shrapnel paid for their rooms in advance, grain trading centre at Narsi Natha and concussion. The injured numbered given false names and addresses, Street, near the Victoria Terminus rail- between 500 and 600. and had left the hotels with their way station. Compared to the BSE blast, it At the moment of the blast, room keys at the time of the blast. was minor in terms of magnitude and Dr Shalini Sabnis, who runs the Worli Hotel staffers are being ques- casualties. But before anybody could women's hospital, had just finished a tioned about these occupants and grasp the connection, a rapid series of telephone conversation with a friend with the help of descriptions from them, identikit sketches are being developed. 2. Hand grenades were lobbed from a moving vehicle at Mahim's Macchimar Nagar. Eye- witnesses from the scene are help- ing the police in constructing identikit sketches of the vehicle's occupants. 3. Registration and chassis numbers of the cars—some of which are likely to be found in the debris which the police are now combing through—that were used in the bombings could provide vital clues. While most of the cars are expected to be stolen vehicles, those that are not could help move the investigations further. 4. An abandoned Maruti van found by the police and its cache of arms and ammunition. Other articles recovered from the van include two plastic prayer beads, two small plastic bottles A victim at the Air India Building: helping hands filled with water and labelled 'holy water' in Arabic script and a blasts devastated 11 other targets, in- who had informed her about the BSE packet of dates. cluding the Air India headquarters at explosion. She was still holding the 5. A Sri Lankan national de- Nariman Point—the country's finan- receiver when the blast ripped through tained on March 6—and was cial and commercial hub—the jewellery the hospital. She reacted quickly. Even subsequently arrested—who had market at Zaveri Bazar, two Air India- though her consultation room facing changed large amounts of foreign managed Centaur hotels in north bom- the street was reduced to rubble, she currency with the help of stolen bay and the Welcomgroup's Sea Rock checked on her patients—six women travellers cheques at a city hotel. Hotel. Other targets included a petrol and two infants—found them safe and 6. The abandoned van was pump near the Shiv Sena headquarters herded them out, only to see a horrific traced to Yakub Memon, a char- at Shivaji Park, and two movie theatres sight. Cars were in flames, and people tered accountant, who flew to in Central Bombay in heavily populated dismembered and bloodied ran about Dubai with his family on the day areas. Between the first explosion at 1:26 blindly, screaming for help. of the blasts. However, the van p.m. and the last at 3:54 p.m. at the Sea Harsh Thakkar, a commerce gradu- could have been stolen by terror- Rock, Bombay streets were littered with ate from Bombay's Sydenham College, ists. Police are investigating a trail of blood and destruction. was returning to his Worli home with Memon's antecedents. Though the stock exchange and Air his brother Kumar in his Maruti after 7. Two scooters found India building blasts were significant in viewing the carnage at the Stock Ex- with about 8 kg of explosives (RDX terms of targeting the city's financial change, when he approached the site: with PETN ) each which was wired nerve centre—Maharashtra Chief Min- "Suddenly there was an explosion," to the ignition. ister Sharad Pawar claimed the exercise says Thakkar, "a red ball of fire roiled was conducted "to destabilise the towards me." It was then that Thakkar saw something fly through the open window of the car. He turned and saw a severed hand lying on the back seat: "There was nothing left of the bus. The The Centre: How it Reacted cars ahead of me and behind were smashed. But we were alive. It was an HE Home Ministry's control tive but he insisted that he would absolute miracle." room received news of the only leave next morning. Getting Bombay, on that day, was full of Tbomb blasts at 2.30 p.m., one wind of news that Pilot, instead of similar miraculous escape stories: bro- hour after the first blast rocked the waiting for the special plane, was kers leaving the stock exchange seconds Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The arranging to leave by a commercial before the explosion, cars pulling out of message was immediately passed on flight, Chavan swung into action— the petrol pump just before it ignited and to Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan but not before Rao intervened asking people passing targeted buildings min- in Parliament, and to Minister of both to leave the same evening.