"Return of the Memons: A Pyrrhic Victory
(The story of a rare contest between the ISI and the CBI)"

It was the afternoon of March, 12, 1993; much like any other March afternoon in Bombay (now called Mumbai). The short-lived winter in the commercial capital of India had receded and summer was setting in. The city, which usually moves at a frenetic pace, was taking a lunch break. Even though all seemed well, the calm felt a trifle uneasy. Generally known for its cosmopolitan character and business-friendly social and cultural ethos, the city had been ripped by two bloody Hindu-Muslim riots in December, 1992 and January 1993 in which hundreds of lives, mostly of Muslims, had been lost. A sense of fear and uncertainty lay simmering under the
apparent quiet.

Unlike the soothsayer, who warned Julius Caesar of the Ides of March, in the celebrated
eponymous play by William Shakespeare, there was none to caution the City of Bombay of the impending doom. None knew that within the next couple of hours catastrophe was to strike.

Between 1.30 pm and 3.40 pm in the afternoon, the city was rocked by a series of bomb blasts, leaving 257 dead, 713 injured and property worth millions of dollars destroyed. The targets were carefully selected to shock and awe. Some like the Stock Exchange building and the Air India building were government or semi-government establishments; some others were five-star hotels like Sea Rock at Bandra, Hotel Centaur at Juhu, Hotel Centaur at Santa Cruz; and other busy places with heavy foot-falls like Zaveri Bazar, Katha Bazar, Century Bazar at Worli and Plaza Theatre were chosen to cause maximum fatality and spread terror. Last but not the least, a serious attempt was made to incite communal violence by lobbing hand-grenades at a Hindu Colony in Mahim and a bomb explosion at a petrol pump adjacent to Shiv Sena Bhawan in Dadar.These, indeed, resulted in a riot in which three lives were lost and several vehicles, shops and homes destroyed.

Not only Bombay but the entire country was left stunned.

To be continued...