Black Friday (2004 film)
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for other uses, look at Black Friday (disambiguation)
| Black Friday | |
|---|---|
 Banner of the movie Black Friday |
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| Directed by | Anurag Kashyap |
| Produced by | Arjun Bagga, Arindam Mitra |
| Written by | Hussain Zaidi, Anurag Kashyap |
| Starring | Kay Kay Menon, Pavan Malhotra, Aditya Srivastava, Kishore Kadam, Gajraj Rao, Zakir Hussain, Dibyendu Bhattacharya |
| Music by | Indian Ocean (band) |
| Cinematography | Nataraja Subramanian |
| Editing by | Aarti Bajaj |
| Release date(s) |  2004 (premiere)February 9, 2007 August 13, 2004 (Locarno International Film Festival) |
| Running time | 143 min |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
| IMDb profile | |
Black Friday is an Indian movie about the 1993 Mumbai bombings by director Anurag Kashyap. Based on a book by S. Hussain Zaidi, this film tries to recreate those events and the intense feelings that followed them.
[edit] Introduction
Black Friday is film based on the 1993 serial Islamic terrorist bomb blasts in Mumbai which many believe were organised as retaliation for the Bombay riots which left over 1,500 people dead. It was featured at the Locarno film festival and received widespread praise.
Black Friday was not released in Indian theaters for 2 years, as on the eve of its release a petition was filed by the persons named in the film, the alleged perpetrators of the crime, seeking a stay. Their argument, which was upheld by the court [1], was that the film would bias public opinion against them and hence affect the outcome of the verdict which was still pending in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. The accused had been charged with TADA, Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, which carries a maximum sentence of death.
The film was received rapturously at previews in India and abroad. It got a United Kingdom release in 2006 and was released in India on February 9th, 2007. This was nearly 2 years after the film was shot, when the Supreme Court of India gave it the go ahead.. [2]
[edit] Plot
On March 9, 1993 Gul Mohammed stated that there was a conspiracy underway to bomb major locations around the city at Nav Pada police station, Bombay. But the police dismissed his confession, and three days later, Bombay was torn apart by a series of explosions. 257 people were killed, and close to 1400 were injured . Investigators discovered that the bombs were made of RDX, which was smuggled into the city with the aid of certain officials such as the border police, etc. The blasts were a direct result of the Bombay Riots, which is the term used to describe the bloody warring between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the period from December 1992 to January 1993, which left over 1500 people, mostly Muslims, dead. It was an unprecedented outburst of violence and abuse, resulting in enormous emotional trauma and property loss. Tiger Memon's (Pawan Malhotra) office was burnt to cinders. The suffering of the Muslim minority community in the riots incited a meeting of underworld leaders in Dubai, who then took it on themselves to seek retaliation. Tiger was also looking for revenge, and suggested an attack on Bombay as the strongest message, leading to Black Friday, March 12, 1993.
Asgar Muqadam, Tiger Memon's secretary was arrested on March 14, 1993. He was beaten till he gave up the information he knew about the bomb blasts, and the police began their search. Asst Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria (currently Inspector General of the Mumbai police) was put in charge of the case. Following the blasts Badshah Khan (Aditya Shrivastava) had left Bombay and gone into hiding but on May 10, 1993 he was found out.
Badshah Khan realizes that there is no justification for his acts, and decides to become a police witness. On November 4, 1993, the police file a charge sheet against 189 accused. The Central Bureau of Intelligence takes over the case.
Then on August 5, 1994, Tiger's brother, Yaqub Memon, willingly turns himself in to the authorities. In a candid Newstrack interview on national television Yaqub states that it was Tiger and his underworld associates who orchestrated the conspiracy. And Tiger Memon has now disappeared.
See: S. Hussain Zaidi - Black Friday - The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, Penguin Books India (2002), ISBN 0-14-302821-9
