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The blasted Bombay blasts

On October 9, The Times of India reported that "Trial in 1993 serial blast case concludes," seven years after 257 people were killed, 713 were maimed, and public property worth Rs 27 crores was damaged by Pakistan-guided Islamic terrorists on March 12, 1993, in Bombay. The CBI examined 684 witnesses in the designated TADA court of Judge Pramod Kode, who was to decide on the CBI's plea to exhibit the chemical analysers' reports which are crucial as they pertain to the use of RDX in the blasts "allegedly" engineered by Dawood Ibrahim. After that, the CBI was to formally close its case "next week."

The newspaper informed us that the judge had directed defence lawyers Farhana Shah and Subhash Kanse to submit their reply "on Monday" (whether that's Oct 9 or 16 is unclear); the prosecution had recorded 12,000 pages of evidence before closing its case on September 27, and the CBI had produced 2,500 documents as exhibits. The judge, after sifting through all the evidence, was expected to pose questions based on the evidence cited by the prosecution to each accused on his role in the blasts. The statements of the accused would then be recorded under Section 313 CrPc which provides undertrials an opportunity to fortify their defence, and is a time consuming process (the work of framing the questions had already begun). Thereafter, both sides would present their arguments. Lawyers estimated that it would take the court at least two years to deliver a verdict. That's all. In 233 words.

So I waited for "next week." Which didn't happen till two weeks later on October 24: "Mumbai blast accused exempted from appearance." We learnt that 94 accused, including film star Sanjay Dutt, were exempted from appearing before the TADA court till November 5 due to Diwali vacations. Judge Kode permitted them to visit any part of Maharashtra in that period; to leave the state, they'd have to obtain prior permission.

Dutt was permitted to go abroad for the premiere of, of all the films, Mission Kashmir, yet another piece of shit that looks tenderly at Islamic terrorists; the plea was granted on condition that the star will not misuse his bail by establishing contact with the absconding accused. Another accused, Sharif Parkar, incarcerated since 1993, was permitted to attend the funeral of his mother and return to central jail the same day. Dutt's age wasn't mentioned, but ToI felt it was imperative for us to know Parkar's -- 70 years. Parkar "is alleged to have participated in the landing of arms and ammunition at the instance of absconding accused Tiger Memon to cause serial blasts in Mumbai." The CBI submitted it had closed its case. Despite protests by the defence lawyers, the court allowed the CBI to exhibit five reports by the chemical analysers on the RDX used in the blasts. That's all. In 252 words.

When the special public prosecutor, Ujjwal Nikam, examined the last prosecution witness, ToI reported it a week later, on October 4. In that account, we were told that the police had filed the chargesheet "way back" on November 4, 1993, but that the recording of evidence began only in July 1995. Nikam said the first two witnesses to be examined were the "star" witnesses, approvers who had "thrown light on how the heinous conspiracy was hatched and executed." This report was all of 187 words.

The last time that ToI carried a fairly detailed report vis-à-vis the blast trial was on April 15, written by one Olav Albuquerque. The basic premise? "After a police inspector deposed recently that the two [Muslim suspects] had voluntarily made the confessions, the entire sordid tale of police torture and brutality emerged in the court room. TADA detenus' [sic] allegations about being tortured in police custody assume significance because confessions in TADA cases can be used to convict them." The chief analyst? "'Such confessions are extracted by torturing the suspects. The National Human Rights Commission gets hundreds of similar complaints,' said Thrity Patel, a professor of law from Nagpur and human rights activist."

We learnt the view of defence counsel Majeed Memon: "After being tortured by the police, can we believe that their confessions could be voluntary?" Heavens, we also read the words of Inspector Shinde, suspected of being the tormenter: "Today, I do not remember whether on the said day, Salim Khan had complained to the designated court that the police had assaulted him while he was in their custody and that his right hand was immobilised and that he was assaulted the previous night." However, even after scrutinising the report, this fundie couldn't discern to whom the writer was referring in the opening sentence, "Lawyers have questioned the authenticity of confessions..." Unless, of course, the HR-activist-cum-professor and the defence counsel constitute the all-encompassing "lawyers."

Such has been the coverage of the Bombay blasts trial. When the Press actually bothered to cover it, all the views of the defence were aired, while not a word from the prosecution was cited -- except when it sounded dubious. In truth, I'm handicapped: The blasts occurred before I took up writing and so I've few clippings. But even if that file were thick, it would be useless. For when I did get interested and searched, I found that the Press shied from publishing details about the accused -- other than their sufferings under the evil TADA, enforced by the equally evil police. In May 1997, I wrote in The Sunday Observer:

"Take this masthead story from The Bombay Times: 'Zubeida will turn three years old this July. Daughter of Rahin and Yakub Memon, two of the 11 members of the Memon family charged with masterminding the March 12, 1993 bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai... the chances of Zubeida's reunion with her parents seem dim... these poor people do not have the money to pursue the case till the Supreme Court.' Excuse me while I disgorge my lunch, but is this a 'human interest' topic? I wonder why this bleeding heart didn't do a similar one on those children who will never reunite with their fathers since the latter were splattered all around Century Bazaar in 1993!"

What about the trials and tribulations of the families of the 257 killed and 713 maimed? Did they all receive the extremely paltry ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakhs promised by the state government? I don't know. What I do know is that the National Human Rights Commission awarded a compensation of Rs 5 lakhs as interim relief to Iqbal Ismail Haspatel's family "which was a victim of humiliation, harassment and torture in police custody" for 15 days (naturally, The Hindu, February 21). So, the Muslim family received Rs 3 lakhs more for being in jail. While Sarla Gidwani runs her late husband's business and demands that the guilty be given the harshest punishment; the family of Satish Hegde admits that it received no help from the government; Suresh Tandel asks, "How do I explain to my two young children that their mother has gone away for ever?"; Mangesh Patil, a factory worker, has to run a telephone booth after losing his leg (happily, rediff.com; unhappily, March 12, 1998).

I used to have stars in my eyes when I thought of journalism (thanks to Watergate). I believed it was a reporter's job to filter the information before influencing the public. For instance, take that, sob-sob, 70-year-old Sharif Parkar who has to, sniff-sniff, attend his mother's funeral. I found in my meager clippings this bit: "[former chief minister A R] Antulay's relative Sheriff Abdul Gafoor Parkar is in jail for helping one Dawood Taklya to go to Dubai to meet Dawood Ibrahim... Parkar alias Dadabhai had also helped the main accused, Tiger Memon, in landing the explosives at Shekadi in Raigad district, [Manohar] Joshi said" (rediff.com, February 24, 1998). If I can stumble on this, can you imagine what those who have access to the humungous archives of ToI are likely to find? What "alleged to have participated"??

There's no doubt in my mind about the collaboration between the Muslim gang lords and Pakistan. The CBI states that from the compound of Al-Hussaini building, where the car bombs were prepared, it recovered cardboard boxes with the inscription "Wah Nobel Industries, Wah Cantt" printed on them. Wah Nobel Industries manufactures explosives and is situated near Wah Cantt, Islamabad. Working on the confessions of the arrested accused identified by eye-witnesses, the CBI recovered arms, ammunitions and explosives, of which I list a few: 62 AK-56 rifles; 280 AK-56 magazines; 38,888 ammunition for AK-56; 479 hand-grenades; 12 9mm pistols; 1,250 electric detonators; 2,313 kgs RDX; 1,132.5 kgs gelatin; 50 initiating devices; 17 yellow grenades... And lawyer Majeed Memon says that the blasts was the handiwork of disgruntled Muslims who were upset by the Babri demolition: "There are no international ramifications to the case."

Not to forget Muneer Ahmed's book, published in Pakistan in 1997, which avers that the former president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, had rebuked the then PM Nawaz Sharif for unleashing the ISI to take on Operation Bombay bomb blasts in 1993. It maintains that the Memon brothers were kept in Karachi as state guests before being dispatched to Dubai. The CBI discovered during investigations that about 30 young Muslims, all smugglers, were taken to Islamabad via Dubai for training in arms and explosives. The interesting fact that turned up was that their passports had no arrival or departure stamps of Islamabad immigration authorities. Meaning, no official records of Paki involvement. The CBI is "surprised" to note that "when the trainees returned from Islamabad to Dubai, they were permitted to enter Dubai without any objection, even though their passports did not disclose the port of embarkation."

The CBI must be remarkably naïve if it believes its own words. For anybody with a modicum of brains knows that all the dorks who are roosting in Karachi now couldn't have operated without the tacit approval of certain UAE authorities. And yet, the agency is breaking its balls to seek the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Abu Salem and Chota Shakeel from the UAE under the extradition treaty between New Delhi and Abu Dhabi that was signed on October 25, 1999, and came into force on May 30 this year. In June 1997, the agency had first requested the UAE to extradite the dorks. Since then, it has reiterated its request more than 40 times... Indians don't have a clue how to conserve energy; the best way is the Israel way: sharpshooters.

Uff, I've digressed. The point I set out to make is, the Press is indeed a whore. It caters to nothing but public demand. If readers react in a certain way, a newspaper will instantly mould itself to it. Fact is, the blasts case is a Hindu-Muslim issue, and Hindus are indifferent to its resolution. Islamic rule of yore has left such terror in Hindu genes that as long as they can survive for one more day without another wound, they don't care about the truth and what causes their pusillanimity. For the communities are so obsessed with projecting their not-high-caste-ness or not-Godse-ness that equity goes to the dogs. Basically, Hindus are ashamed of being Hindu, and newspapers -- all run by pinkos-in-ideology-capitalists-in-wants -- know that. Therefore, the Sricrescent report and the scrapping of TADA and the farcical coverage of the Bombay blasts...

Varsha Bhosle