Black Friday

  The police, it is said, resorts to ‘special treatment’ to make the accused talk, the term being a euphemism for physical torture. The police of course always deny such allegations. According to Mukadam, he was accorded ‘special treatment’. Thin and nervous, Mukadam had already been half-broken by the mere sight of policemen at his door. After being accorded ‘special treatment’, from around 2.30 a.m., there was no need to ask him questions. He began talking on his own, not always coherently.

  ‘Tiger had three hawala accounts with someone named Mulchand Shah or Chokshi. The accounts were called Hathi, Irani and Auliya. Tiger’s dealings with Choksi amounted to crores of rupees at times. Tiger’s smuggled silver was bought by Raju Laxmichand Jain, whom we called Raju Kodi.

  ‘Tiger and Javed Chikna left for Dubai on 11 February. At that time, I did not know what for. But I later learnt that it was for training young men to handle arms and ammunition. Tiger had some serious plans in store for Bombay. Before leaving for Dubai, Tiger instructed me take Rs 5 lakh from Chokshi and deliver it to Dadabhai Parkar for a landing. He also asked me to keep in touch with his brother Yaqub. If Yaqub needed money, then I was to borrow it from Chokshi and give it to him.

  ‘Yaqub asked me to take sau peti or a hundred lakhs from Chokshi and give it to him, which I promptly did. A couple of other times, as Yaqub instructed, I asked Chokshi to transfer funds from one account to another—once Rs 25 lakh from Hathi to Irani, and another time Rs 10 lakh to Auliya.

  ‘The other people working with Tiger that I know of are Javed Chikna, Anwar Theba, Shafi, Abdul Gani, Imtiyaz Ghavate, Parvez Shaikh, Salim, Rafiq Madi and Mohammed Hussain.

  ‘Towards the end of February, I began to feel uneasy about Tiger and his plans. I wanted to quit. I told Tiger that I wanted to leave because of some domestic problems. Tiger abused me and called me many names. He said I could leave only when I had settled all the accounts with him after his return.

  ‘Tiger returned from Dubai only in the first week of March. I saw him a couple of times and he took accounts of all the dealings for February and March. On 11 March he called me home and told me that there were a few things I needed to finish before he took off for Dubai again the following morning. I went to the airport to get his boarding pass on 12 March. He came to the airport at around 4 a.m. He told me to go to Al-Hussaini and do some jobs that Anwar Theba would tell me. Then he left.

  ‘When I returned to Al-Hussaini, I found that Chikna, Gani, Parvez, Bashir and several others were in the garage, loading cars and scooters with black chemicals and inserting aluminium pencil-like things in them ...’

  It was 5 a.m. by the time this tale was finished. Maria realized that he had forgotten to call Samra. But now he was too tired. He went home, instructing Dangle to question Mukadam further and to arrange to record his confession as per the provisions of the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA). He realized that in looking for international terrorist organizations, the police force had totally underestimated the abilities of a local smuggler, someone he had not even heard of until this day.

  Mukadam languished in police custody for days after that. The police records show Mukadam was arrested on 18 March and that DCP K.L. Bishnoi recorded his confession on 23 March. What Mukadam underwent between 14 March and 23 March is anybody’s guess.

  ■

  The weekend was over. It was time for the city to return to work for the first time since the day of the bombings. To the delight of most Bombayites, the BSE was operational again. For the police force, however, the weekend had provided no respite.

  Chougule was in at work by 9.30 a.m. on 15 March, going over files and making records of the past three days. He called Major Jadhav at the airport and discussed the recovery of the scooter at Naigaum the previous day. At 9.40 a.m., Pandhre walked in to his room and waited for him to finish his conversation, despite the fact that he was violating protocol by entering a room where a senior officer was on the phone and lingering there.

  Chougule finished the call and glared at Pandhre.

  ‘Sir, there is a call from the police control room that a suspicious scooter has been found at Dhanji Street. We have been asked to go there.’

  Chougule was on his feet immediately. Dhanji Street was a stone’s throw away from the BDDS office. The terrorists were encroaching on his backyard! The BDDS team rushed to the spot.

  The maroon scooter was surrounded by police officers from the LT Marg police station. The area was cordoned off and a crowd was gathering. The DP Jewellers shop in front of the scooter had been evacuated.

  Chougule instructed his officers and the policemen to move the public back at least fifty metres from the scooter. Zanjeer was taken around the two-wheeler. He sniffed it and at once barked to confirm the presence of explosives. As Zanjeer seemed to be indicating the dicky of the scooter, they used a hook and rope to open it carefully.

  Inside were three polythene bags containing a brownish material and a blackish substance attached to a pencil timer.

  Pandhre used a fishing rod and hook to separate the timer from the polythene bags. After this, the officers removed the bags from the dicky. Upon examination, it was found that the black material was RDX, while the brownish one was gelatine.

  The bomb was defused in less than an hour. As Chougule straightened and stretched, feeling very relieved, Zarapkar told him that they had received information on the wireless that another suspicious scooter had been found a few yards away.

  Chougule handed over the scooter and explosives to the police officers for drawing up a panchnama and other paperwork, and then walked over to the second scooter. There was no need for Zanjeer to confirm the presence of explosives for the black stains on the handle of the scooter and black fingerprints on the dials were enough evidence of the presence of RDX. The place was immediately cordoned off, and the hook-and-rope method used to open the front dicky.

  Inside the dicky, Pandhre and Chougule found similar polythene bags attached to a pencil timer. The bomb was defused, and the vehicle and explosives again handed over to the officers from the LT Marg police station. It was after mid-day. The team had defused three scooter bombs in less than twenty-four hours.

  The Bombay police force is divided into two branches: the main branch—police station postings, crime—and the side branch— welfare, special departments, traffic. The traffic department is generally considered the least prestigeous.

  However, to all other departments’ chagrin, it was the traffic department which had managed to provide the first breakthrough in this important case. Maria had not only gained the trust of all his superiors, including Samra, but he had virtually been granted a carte blanche to handle the case as he chose.

  Maria had been asked to form an investigative team. The men he selected were largely drawn from those he interacted with every day, primarily from the traffic department and also officers from Mahim and Worli: Dinesh Kadam, Subhash Varpe, Jolly Verghese, Dhananjay Daund, Virendra Vani, Naval Driver, Abhay Shastri, Kirdant, Subhash Gunjal and Deedar Singh. SI Srirang Nadgouda was Maria’s personal assistant, hence automatically an integral part of the team. Maria was known to inspire loyalty among his juniors, and this team became a closely-knit unit.

  DCP Arup Patnaik of Zone VII also formed his own special team. The third special team was headed by CP Samra, and comprised three veterans from the IPS—Sukhdev Puri, Gyanchand Verma and Ambalal Verma—whose brief was to look into specific aspects of the bombings such as the financial records of Tiger Memon’s firm, Al-Taj International, and the bombings at the three hotels.

  On reaching home after interrogating Mukadam, Maria took a brief nap and a hot shower. He called Samra and JCP Singh, and briefed them about the arrest and the information they had gathered. Singh said he would visit the Mahim police station to discuss the case further.

  On his way to the Mahim police station, Maria decided to stop over at Al-Hussaini, to see if he could gather some more information to question Mukadam abou
t.

  The art of interrogation is like a game of chess, where good players always anticipate their opponent’s next move and have their counter-move ready. Others say, an interrogator should employ the warfare tactics of Gideon. According to the Old Testament, Gideon’s army was weaker than his adversaries, but when he attacked them he raised such a hue and cry that they were fooled into thinking that his army was much stronger than theirs. Thus Gideon had managed to rout his rivals. Similarly, an interrogator should always have information from other sources, however meagre, and use it on the person being questioned to con him into thinking that the interrogator knows a lot more than he actually does, so that he will not dare to lie.

  On reaching Al-Hussaini, Maria walked towards the building, at the entrance of which two policemen were on guard. Having spent so many hours there on Sunday, Maria was already a familiar face to the residents.

  As he waited for the lift, Maria saw a teenaged girl. She looked intelligent and eager. He felt that she wanted to say something but was scared to do so. So he called her over and asked her name.

  ‘My name is Catherine.’

  The lift was waiting for Maria but he gestured to the liftman to proceed without him.

  ‘Do you live in this building, Catherine?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do you know Tiger Memon?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He is a bearded, stout man, not very tall, and always seems to be angry. The kids were afraid of him. Once when my friend Babloo’s tennis ball hit the windscreen of his car, he slapped Babloo so hard that he cried for a long time after that. Since then we were always afraid of him and never played near his cars.’

  ‘Are you scared of him even when he is not around?’

  ‘No sir, it is not that.’

  ‘Then?’ Maria smiled reassuringly.

  ‘Sir, the thing is, we had seen a lot of activity the last few days in the building. There were many known and unknown men coming to his house, and driving in and out of the compound in his cars.’

  ‘And ... ?’

  ‘On Thursday evening, there were huge flashlights in the garage and all those friends of Tiger uncle were filling cars and scooters with a black substance. My friend Raju tried to go near them, but one of the men yelled at him and told us to go home. But we all kept looking at them from a distance. Late at night, when my family and I were watching television, we could hear them talking loudly and laughing among themselves. I think they must have been there throughout the night because when I was going to school in the morning, some of them were still there.’

  Mukadam had made a passing mention of the events of that night, but the young girl’s details were a revelation. As Catherine was relating the story, some other residents of the building also joined in with more details. Maria decided to confront Mukadam with the new information.

  Mahim was a nondescript and dingy police station, and now suddenly this was where all the action was happening. Maria barged into the cabin of Maneckshaw, the senior police inspector. Maria’s team of officers was already present in the police station. Maria instructed Nadgouda: ‘Get Mukadam here, we need to talk to him.’

  He hardly recognized the man who was brought in: swollen face, dark circles around the sunken eyes, dishevelled hair and dirty rumpled clothes. Maria reflected that in other circumstances he would have felt pity for Mukadam. Mukadam was told to sit in front of Maria’s chair.

  Maria looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘Look, we know what all you people did throughout the night in the garage of Tiger Memon and who all were there with you in it. We also have their names.’ Maria glanced at his diary where he had been making notes while waiting for Mukadam, as if reading the names. ‘I want more from you now.’

  ‘Sahab, I have told you everything I knew. I have not lied or hidden anything from you.’

  ‘Shut up, you have not told me everything. You did not tell me how and why it all originated. Was your Tiger Memon alone on this or did Dawood Ibrahim or other gangs back him? Did you tell me who planted the car bombs at the various spots in Bombay? Tell me everything now or I will hand you over to my officers again.’

  Naked fear could be seen in Mukadam’s eyes; his lips were parched and his throat dry. ‘Sahab, I ... I will tell you ... whatever ... you ask me,’ he said in between sobs.

  ‘Let us begin with the addresses of Tiger’s close associates.’ Maria turned towards Nadgouda. ‘Nad, get the addresses. I want each and every one of them here by the evening. Understand?’

  Mukadam began listing Tiger’s associates and their addresses, which the police team took down, occasionally asking questions and seeking directions to the places mentioned. This session was interrupted when an officer came in to inform Maria that Addl. CP Pawar and JCP Singh had arrived. Maria asked his team to leave in search of the people on the list, while he went to meet the officers and update them.

  For the next few days, the Mahim police station was a flurry of activity. People were brought in, questioned, yelled at and led out. The police station became Maria’s second home where he worked, ate and slept, going home only to bathe and change.

  The advantage of operating from the Mahim police station was that it had a spacious four-storeyed lock-up, containing over sixty-four detention cells with room for 300 detainees, located just behind the police station. Within a few days, the lock-up was crowded as the suspects were picked up and detained there.

  The arrests were meticulously planned so that the arrest of one suspect did not alert the others. Almost all were carried out late at night, after long stakeouts outside the houses of the suspects. Imtiyaz Ghavate was picked up from Navpada in Bandra west, Abdul Gani Turk and Mushtaq Tarani from Dongri, and Parvez Shaikh from the railway quarters at Andheri.

  Apart from the people whom Mukadam had said were actually involved in the bombing, the police also began picking up those people who were neither involved nor were aware of the conspiracy, but had got sucked into the case due to association with the wrong people.

  Such people included the owners of the scooters seized from Dadar and Zaveri Bazaar. After making intensive inquiries, Maria’s team had traced them to Asghar Ali Masalawala, who had purchased them from Sayed Farid. However, as both knew and trusted each other, there were no documents for these transactions. They both knew Tiger Memon, and stated that they had lent these scooters to him without knowing what purpose they would be used for. The police arrested them, charging them with abetting terrorist acts.

  According to many of those arrested, the police used third-degree methods on them, despite their admitting to their role in the blasts and disclosing the whereabouts of their associates. They were made to sign confessional statements, which was sufficient evidence to indict them in court under TADA.

  Within a short span of time, the police had picked up hundreds of suspects. There was panic among the Muslim community, especially those with any association with Tiger. By 21 March, over a dozen suspects had been booked under TADA.

  7

  On the Run

  Tiger had known that his men would be confused and scared after the attack, as only then would they realize the magnitude of what they had got into. Therefore, on the night of 11 March, he had specifically told them to leave the city and go elsewhere, as they would not be safe if they stayed on. They were to return to Bombay only after things had returned to normal and the police had stopped looking for the people involved. He had also assured them that if they required any help, they should contact him at his Dubai number.

  Tiger had reiterated to Chikna the need for all the men to leave Bombay immediately. Chikna had given each of them Rs 10,000 for this purpose at Nagpada after the bombings, on the night of 12 March. Most of the men had planned to leave that very night, or the following day.

  Badshah Khan decided to go to his native village, Rampur in UP. Chikna gave him an additional Rs 5,000 and told him to maintain contact with Tiger in Dubai.

  Badshah told his mother that he would be gone fo
r a few days and took off to Delhi with Bashir Khan. They boarded the Frontier Mail from Borivali station. On reaching Delhi, they wandered aimlessly for a while and finally went to the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin, a much-loved Sufi saint. People from all parts of the country flock to this shrine, and the two men thought it would be easy to get lost in the milling crowd of devotees. They decided to spend the night there.

  However, despite the crowds, Badshah felt as if all eyes were on him. He asked Bashir to call Tiger at Dubai from a telephone booth and see if he had any advice. It was just past midnight in Delhi, about 10.30 p.m. in Dubai. Tiger picked up the phone on the first ring. When Bashir told him that he and Badshah were in Delhi, he was furious.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in Delhi?’ he yelled. ‘You’re supposed to go underground. There’s no difference between Delhi and Bombay. Get out of there before the police hound you out. Go—fast. Call me from wherever you both end up.’

  Tiger’s venom unsettled Bashir. He and Badshah decided to leave for Rampur by truck that night. They reached the following morning and went to Badshah’s family home. As Bashir was still rattled by Tiger’s anger, he asked Badshah to call Tiger that night.

  Tiger was relieved to know they were in Rampur. He told them to make their way to Jaipur, from where he would try to get them over to Dubai, or at least across the border to Pakistan. From Jaipur, they were to go to Tonk, where they were asked to meet Salim Khan Durrani, also known as Salim Tonk. The same evening, Badshah and Bashir boarded a bus to Jaipur.

  The man they were to meet, Durrani, was a scion of an illustrious family. His father was a judge at the session courts. His brothers had fought in the wars with China and Pakistan. Durrani’s uncles included much-decorated police superintendents and a collector of the erstwhile province of Bombay and Sindh, who had received the Victoria Cross.

  Durrani had been asked by his friend Aziz Ahmed of Bombay to put up some friends for a while. When Badshah and Bashir reached Durrani’s palatial home in Tonk, Javed Chikna, his brother Babloo, Yeba Yaqub, his wife and a friend, Murad Khan, were already there.