Tiger Memon

Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razak Nadim Memon
Tiger Memon
Born	(1960-11-24) 24 November 1960 Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Occupation	Terrorist, Mobster
Spouse(s)	Shabana ibrahim memon
Children	3

Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razak Nadim Memon, better known by his nickname Tiger Memon, is an Indian terrorist and one of the prime suspects in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case. He is wanted by Interpol and the CBI. He is a member of D-Company and is a trusted lieutenant of its leader, Dawood Ibrahim.^[1] He got the nickname 'Tiger' after helping a drugs and weapons smuggler to evade the grips of the Crime Branch of Mumbai Police by driving his car dangerously over 100 km/h on one way roads.1993 blasts were planned in April but Tiger advanced them PTI Mar 21, 2013, 10.33PM IST

The serial blasts of March 1993 were originally planned to take place in April that year and it was to be a countrywide bomb attack but the date was advance on instructions of absconding accused Tiger Memon who suspected the police had got a whiff of the terror plot, an officer involved in solving the case said today.

Also, according to the original plan, the bomb blasts were to coincide with Shiv Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Maratha warrior Shivaji, said Rakesh Maria, Maharashtra ATS chief. Maria, then a Deputy Commissioner of Police posted in Mumbai, had played a key role in cracking the case."The plan was to trigger bomb blasts in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and other parts of the country in April and not in March. But Tiger Memon advanced it (and only Mumbai was targeted)," he said.

Another police officer said Memon changed the date as he suspected Gul Noor Mohammed Khan, one of his aides, had leaked information about the plot to police.

"Khan had told his mother there would be blasts in the country very soon. His mother warned Khan not to get involved in such activities. Scared, Khan got himself arrested in an assault case," the officer added.

Fearing Khan might have let out the information to police, Memon instructed his men to prepare for blasts on March 12. Accordingly, explosions targeting nearly a dozen places in the country's financial nerve centre were set off on that day, he said.

According to Maria, Memon had received Rs 10 lakh and 12 lakh through hawala (illegal channel of transmitting money) from the Gulf on March 10 and 11 respectively. Also, he had received USD 60,771 three months prior to the blasts.

The funds were subsequently used by Memon for arranging vehicles, explosives, training his men to handle explosives and firing, among others, he said.

The serial blasts had claimed 257 lives and left 713 injured.

1993 Bombay bombings

The breakthrough in the 1993 serial blasts investigation was achieved with the recovery of an RDX-laden Maruti van registered in the name of Tiger Memon's sister-in-law, police. Till March 14, two days after the 1993 blasts, the investigation team consisting of 162 men and led by Rakesh Maria, who is now Maharashtra ATS chief, was clueless. "Then we got an information that an abandoned Maruti van, carrying seven AK 56s and. His role as the prime accused in the blasts (along with Dawood Ibrahim) has been confirmed by the Special Court after the conviction of the other accused in the case.^[2] Another Tiger Memon aide held guilty in ’93 blast case AGENCIES Oct 4, 2006, 03.02am IST. Yakub said Tiger was a non-resident Indian and used to come to India to stay with him and his family. Yakub said he used to go to Dubai for business purposes and that he and Tiger were busy in their respective business careers.

Denying that he was close to Tiger, Yakub said although they were blood relatives, there was not much affection between them. He also denied having financed the 1993 blasts by making payments to the co-accused through Moolchand Shah and a business firm.

About the payment made to East West Travel Agency for the passage of members of the Memon family to Dubai, Yakub said Tiger had made the payments and he had nothing to do with financing the blasts.

"It is a matter of coincidence that we had gone to Dubai a day before the blasts and there was nothing unusual about it because the family had business interests in Dubai and used to frequently visit the UAE," Yakub said.

Yakub also denied he lent his car to be used by those behind the bomb blasts. He said he does not own any car and the vehicle used in the blasts belonged to his family and was occasionally used by him.

Regarding the charge that he had given two suitcases with explosives to Amjad Meher Baksh, who passed it on to other accused, Yakub said the Supreme Court had discharged Baksh and there was no question of his (Yakub's) involvement in the matter.

Yakub also denied that the premises at Al-Husseini building, which were used to store explosives, belonged to him. He claimed he did not own any apartment in the building.

In an emotional appeal, Yakub said he surrendered to the authorities on July 28, 1994, and was followed by his family. He said he had cooperated with the CBI in its investigation and regretted that he was being framed for conspiracy.

MUMBAI: TADA court on Tuesday held Niyaz Ahmed Shaikh guilty of conspiracy in the 1993 bomb blasts case. He was also found guilty on the count of obtaining training in handling arms and explosives in Pakistan.

He was also convicted for attending conspiracy meetings at the residence of co-accused Nasir Ahmed. TADA Judge PD Kode also convicted Niyaz on the charge of conducting a survey of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai building, a potential target for blasts along with prime accused Tiger Memon, Javed Chikna and Mohammad Usman Jam Khan.The court, however, acquitted Rukhsana Mohammad Shafi Zariwala of charges of aiding and abetting terrorist acts. The acquittal came after the prosecution failed to prove its case.

Rukhsana is the second woman to be acquitted in the case, the other being Rahin Memon, sister-in-law of Tiger Memon. The Judge discarded the evidence adduced by prosecution to show that Rukhsana had transported arms in a taxi from Jogeshwari to Musafirkhana along with her husband Mohammad Shafi and other co-accused Pervez Shaikh.

While Shafi is absconding, Pervez was acquitted of same charges as Rukhsana, though he was found guilty on other counts.

The judge held that confessions of two co-accused implicating Rukhsana were not properly recorded so he was not accepting them.

Besides the confessions of the co-accused, there was no independent evidence to corroborate charges against her, the judge held.

On September 12, 2006, the special TADA court, hearing the long-drawn case around the 1993 Bombay bombings, convicted four members of the Memon family: Yakub, Essa, Rubina and Yusuf. Three other members of the Memon family — Suleiman, Hanifa and Rahil — have been acquitted with the judge giving them the benefit of doubt. The four Memons have been held guilty on charges of conspiring and abetting acts of terror. They face jail terms ranging from a minimum of five years to life imprisonment. Yakub Memon, the brother of prime accused 'Tiger' Memon, has been charged for possession of unauthorised arms.^[3]^[4] Government recommends rejection of mercy petition of Yakub Memon PTI Mar 20, 2014, 05.48PM IST

(Home Ministry has recommended…) NEW DELHI: Home Ministry has recommended to the President that the mercy petition of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, a convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, be rejected.

The recommendation, recently sent to President Pranab Mukherjee, was based on the Maharashtra government's decision that the mercy petition be rejected, a senior official said.

Execution of Death

The Supreme Court on June 2, 2014 stayed the execution of death row convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, a key conspirator along with Dawood Ibrahim in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.

Yakub Memon, the younger brother of Tiger Memon, who was arrested by Nepal police at Kathmandu Airport and handed over to CBI of India, has been sentenced to death. Three other family members have been given life imprisonment. Rubina, the sister-in-law of Tiger Memon, escaped the death penalty as she is a woman. Yusuf and Essa have been given a life sentence. Yakub was under treatment for depression.^[5]

In popular culture

The activities of Tiger Memon were a major part of Anurag Kashyap's film Black Friday (2004), which is based on the 1993 Bombay bombings. Memon was played by Bollywood actor Pavan Malhotra. Anurag Kashyap show extremely well how the entire operation conducted by tiger memon and dawood ibrahim. these two international terrorist still in Pakistan there are enough proof for this as pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad son marrried with douds doughter

IndMemonsThe $INDIA MOST WANTED FAMILYS say that non-governmental fundamentalist Islamic groups seem to be emerging as prime movers in the conspiracy with the assistance of Pakistan's ISI. The international dimension also became clearer last week with the Lebanese Coast Guard's capture of a ship laden with explosives heading for India.

It's clearly the most complicated and most comprehensive investigation of its kind being handled by the Indian intelligence establishment encompassing international terrorism, smuggling, the domestic mafia, money-laundering and drug syndicates.

The search for Bombay's 12-member Memon family, which escaped to Dubai on an Emirates flight between March 1 and 12, directly involves nearly 600 investigators, top officials of all the intelligence agencies, the Home, Defence and External Affairs Ministries and nearly a dozen embassies, besides Interpol and terrorism experts in Washington, D.C., and London. Even Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has assured Narasimha Rao that he has ordered an "unprecedented man-hunt" for the Memons who, if found, would be returned to India "gift-wrapped".

Riaz Hussain Khokhar, the Pakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi, told India Today that the Memons could indeed have entered Pakistan though not necessarily with their own names and passports. He said the Memons had not been issued any Pakistani visas in India. South Block is sceptical but the fact is that Islamabad finds itself under unprecedented pressure over the issue.

With the police working on three crucial leads - the chassis numbers of the car involved in the Air India-building blast, the key of the scooter with the bomb that did not explode, and the abandoned maroon Maruti van containing AK-56 rifles and grenades - all traced to the Memons - the family has emerged as the nucleus of the diabolical international conspiracy of which the March 12 blasts were merely the beginning. Unprecedented rioting was to follow in Bombay.

Grenades and AK-56s were distributed as riots were expected to follow the blasts. The country's top investigators have now been climbing up the panstained stairs of the seven-storey Al Hussain building near Mahim police station where the Memons lived, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the large, low-profile, but generally dreaded joint family occupying apartment numbers 21, 22, 23, 26 and 27 on the fifth and sixth floors.The family consists of father Abdul Razzak, 65, his wife Hanifa, and six sons - Arif alias Suleman, 34; Ibrahim alias Mushtaq alias Tiger, 33; Yakub, 31; Ayub, 29; Anjum alias Essa, 24; and Yusuf, 22. The Memons are Sunnis from the Kutch region.

Despite the Memon sect's traditional trading skills, Abdul Razzak never found much success in business. The family started life in a Bhendi Bazaar building and when that collapsed in 1980, they moved to a transit flat in Mahim's Machimar Nagar, finally moving to Al Hussain in 1988. His eldest son Arif became an income tax officer but quit and began working in Saudi Arabia.

Yakub, mild-mannered and debonair, passed his chartered accountancy exam five years ago and opened a firm, C.C. Mehta and Memon Associates, along with schoolmate Chetan Mehta. Though the partnership did not last, Mehta still remembers him as a gentle person and finds it difficult to believe he could be involved in the bombings. Yakub also set up a meat export firm, Tejarath International.

Abdul Razzak's second son, Ibrahim, took to business, but of the illegal variety, smuggling precious metals.He became a terror in the Nagpada, Pydhonie, Agripada and Dongri areas. To most he was simply Tiger. Neighbours steered clear of the flamboyant and arrogant Tiger though harbouring a sneaking admiration for him. "He was the first in our area to acquire a Maruti 1000, a blazing red one with the number GJI 3737," recalls a resident.

The Al Hussain buildingTiger, a commerce graduate, started out as a bank clerk, and surfaced in police records when he fired at a customs party in 1985.

The incident created an aura around him in the underworld. He thrived as a 'landing agent' for Dubai smuggling syndicates and soon became a smuggler in his own right, rubbing shoulders with better-known underworld figures such as the Dossa brothers - Mohammed and Mustafa (alias Majnu), Iqbal Mirchi and Salim Sarang alias Talwar.

He was arrested again in 1989 for carrying an unlicensed 32 revolver and yet again a year later and charged with rioting during the 1990 Assembly elections. Recalls Assistant Commissioner of Police Madhukar Zende, who became nationally famous for arresting Charles Sobhraj: "Tiger was a very aggressive fellow and not many tangled with him."In April 1989, on the notorious Shuklaji Street of central Bombay, a customs party raided the first floor of a building and found eight gold bars belonging to Tiger's associate, Mohammed Dossa.

While three customs officers were concluding the search, Tiger arrived and announced dramatically: "I'm Tiger, and you dare not remove the gold." He then banged his forehead into Customs Officer Roshan Neogi's face. Neogi was hospitalised with a broken nose. Tiger managed to escape.

Tiger has been on the wanted list of Bombay Customs since 1989. In 1990, a cofeposa order was passed against him listing two major gold smuggling offences-300 gold bars worth Rs 2 crore in one case and 4,520 gold bars worth Rs 28 crore in another.

A penalty of Rs 75 lakh was also slapped on him. Along with notoriety, Tiger acquired a vast fortune. An underworld source puts the value of the family's fortune at Rs 15-20 crore which includes several businesses and real estate.

Two years ago, Yakub and Ayub were married at a glittering joint wedding at the Islam Gymkhana on Marine Drive, an occasion which provided an invaluable photo album to the police. Some prominent film personalities and social celebrities attended the wedding. Besides money, the Memon family was keen on Hindi cinema and cricket. Yakub, in fact, was the captain of a local cricket team.In April 1989, on the notorious Shuklaji Street of central Bombay, a customs party raided the first floor of a building and found eight gold bars belonging to Tiger's associate, Mohammed Dossa.

Besides the home and offices in Mahim and a flat in Bandra occupied by Tiger's mistress nicknamed Baya, the family owned shops and residences in the Mohammad Ali Road area, and land in Santa Cruz, on which they planned to develop shops in Manish Market (a smuggled goods centre).

Tiger was said to be involved in a dispute over a shop with influential bullion dealers in the glittering Zaveri Bazaar. Police say this could be one reason (the other being strong financial support to the Hindutva movement by Zaveri Bazaar businessmen) why Tiger placed three scooter bombs in the crowded marketTo help in the business, Arif had resigned his Saudi job and gone to Dubai, where he was joined by Ayub. Underworld sources say while Tiger controlled smuggling, his brothers laundered money. Anjum assisted Yakub in Bombay. Only the somewhat retarded Yusuf remained idle.Yakub was planning to enter two new areas - real estate development and politics. Said an acquaintance: "He was showing interest in local issues. But the recent riots changed all that.

The Memons' offices on Lady Jamshedji Road were ransacked and burnt. Riot victims from Wadala flocked to the orphanage next to their home with stories of savage killings. Recalls Yakub's mother-in-law Maimoona, who lives on Al Hussain's first floor: "We used to hear shrieks of women who seemed to have gone crazy, having lost sons and husbands.It is impossible to know if the riots persuaded the Memons to make the transition from being part of Bombay's prosperous underworld to becoming its first home-grown urban terrorists. Or, whether the motive was a combination of communal vengeance and mercenary gain, along with the destruction of their smuggling and havala business by lifting of import controls on gold and silver and rupee convertibility.Police say Tiger, who had turned very religious in the last two years and sported a long beard, returned to Bombay from Dubai in the third week of January after finalising the conspiracy with the mafia bosses in Dubai. Dawood Ibrahim is being mentioned as a suspect.

After relentless questioning of suspected carriers and the Memons' henchmen, investigators are now able to piece together at least that part of the jigsaw.

On February 8, a huge consignment of nearly 2,000 kg of RDX, mixed with other material and shaped like extra large soap cakes, was off-loaded from a boat at Shekhadi village south of Shrivardhan on Maharashtra's picturesque Konkan coast.

Unusually, Tiger personally went to Shekhadi with his bodyguard Anwar Theiba to supervise the landing, which was organised by the area's biggest landing agent, Dadabhai Parkar.

The explosive was packed in cardboard cartons, some of which had the marking Packnie Packaging Ltd, Lahore. If it was indeed a Pakistani intelligence operation it seems odd that the ISI would leave these markings on the boxes.

This is one of the factors that persuades intelligence officials to believe that the prime movers of the operation were pan-Islamic fundamentalist groups working outside state control. Incidentally, the markings of the AK-56 rifles had been erased on a lathe.The entire cargo was loaded into four Mahindra jeeps and two Tempo vans. The vehicles left Shekhadi for Bombay at 30-minute intervals.

According to Bombay Police's reconstruction of the plot based on interrogation reports, once the consignment was safely stored, Tiger began organising the training of about 20 specially chosen men.

Between February 12 and 20, these men were flown in groups of two or three to Dubai, from where they were taken on a pia flight to Karachi. Each person received basic training for 12 days in handling AK-56 rifles, hand grenades, detonators and explosives.

The instructors were dressed in plain clothes and the training took place at a spot about two hours' drive from Karachi. In the group was Gul Mohammed, 20, owner of a Vile Parle marble shop, who resided in the Behrampada shanty-town, the scene of sustained violence during the January riots. He is now in police custody. According to the underworld grapevine, Tiger was paid Rs 20 crore for the whole operation besides expenses.

The last group of trained terrorists returned in the first week of March. D-Day was at hand. On March 11, a day before the bombing, about 300 kg of the explosive was moved from the New Bombay godown to the parking garage owned by the Memons on the ground floor of Al Hussain. The vehicles and scooters were loaded and ready with their deadly packages by 2 a.m. and the garage was thoroughly washed.

Tiger left for Sahar Airport to catch the Emirates EK 501 flight which took off at 4.31 a.m. on March 12, leaving the final phase in the safe hands of three of his most trusted lieutenants - Anwar Theiba, javed Chikna and Shafi. The blasts began, as planned at 1.26 p.m.

The morning after the blasts, unaware that the police were already hot on their trail, Yakub telephoned a Bombay chartered accountant from Dubai and asked him to release cheques worth Rs 60 lakh to three creditors. So by the time the police began attaching the Memon properties, this cash had already been taken out.

Yet the Memons failed to anticipate the speed with which the Bombay Police cracked open the case, zeroing in on their flat on the night of the explosions and picking up several of their associates in the first week itself. True, the find of the Memons' maroon Maruti van, with seven AK-56 rifles and four hand-grenades in Worli, barely three hours after the blast, was a lucky break.

But police claim the men in the van were unnerved by the heavy police bandobast and the explosion of a pencil detonator inside the vehicle unhinged them. Police Commissioner Amarjeet Singh Samra says Tiger had boasted to his men that each detonator cost Rs 5 lakh and could blow up a building on its own.experts rummaging through the debris at the Air India building were able to find a precious piece of twisted metal giving the chassis number of the Ambassador car used in the bombing.

To cut red-tape, the Bombay Police contacted CBI chief S.K. Dutta in New Delhi who personally called Hindustan Motors in Calcutta to track down the dealer to whom the car had been supplied.

The breach was made and led to the arrest of the duo, Farid Bhai and Asghar Ali Taher Ali Masalawala, who supplied the three new Bajaj scooters, and the dealer, Sulaiman Lakdawala, who sold the three jeeps, one Ambassador and two Maruti vans. Some of the vehicles were modified in Lakdawala's Byculla garage to create a cavity to accommodate the explosives.

The prime movers were Peshawar-based fanatical organisations trained by the ISI. Finally, the police, reacting to a tip-off received by DCP Arup Patnaik also seized nearly 1,500 kg of RDX from Mumbra on the outskirts of Bombay. For a moment the raiding party as well as the ace sniffer dog Zanjeer were fooled since the godown only smelled of fish.

The conspirators had taken the precaution of wrapping the RDX in 800 yards of gunny used to wrap fish. But once a few layers of the gunny were removed Zanjeer went berserk and Bombay Police heaved a sigh of relief.Police say an utterly horrifying scenario is emerging from their investigations into the conspiracy. The powers controlling the conspirators had expected the blasts to lead to a massive communal backlash.

By this time the AK-56 rifles and grenades were to be located in communally sensitive localities so that the mobs attacking them could be confronted with automatic fire and explosions. This would have simply pushed Bombay over the edge.

"Two things failed the perpetrators of the crime in this objective: their over-confidence, the maturity of the people of Bombay in keeping calm, and the Bombay Police's quick reaction, a senior investigator says. In fact, investigators believe that one cause for the over-confidence was the belief that large-scale riots were bound to follow the explosions, sucking in the police force, thus giving the conspirators the time and opportunity to make good their escape. This is why their escape plans were so clumsy.

Pakistan admits the Memons may have come to Karachi but denies its hand. In retrospect, the police are also tracing a new pattern in the January riots. The round of widespread stabbings, mainly of Hindus, on January 6 and 7, after a mahaarti turned violent in the Muslim-dominated Null Bazaar area, is now being traced to gangsters like Salim Talwar who were close to Tiger Memon.

This, Bombay Police believe, should make them view the January riots in a different light as the stabbing was possibly a deliberate tactic to provoke riots employed by the same saboteurs who now once again wanted to destroy Bombay.

RDX haul being weighedThe logic was that if some stabbings in January resulting in 30-odd deaths could create such riots, serial blasts of this kind were bound to create unmanageable mayhem.

"We are dealing with a most diabolical brain behind the hand that belongs to mercenary who would do just about anything for money though in this case even a motivation of communal revenge may have been there," said a senior police officer. Such thinking and planning, intelligence sources say, usually comes from a state and not a few individuals.

But in this case, despite the natural temptation to blame Pakistan and the ISI, an entirely new dimension is emerging.

The dominant view among intelligence agencies now is that while the ISI was a bashful abettor in the crime, the prime movers were some well-known Islamic fundamentalist organisations funded in the Middle East linked to fundamentalist groups which sprouted in Peshawar during the Afghan struggle.

The intelligence officials feel the Government has erred in blaming only Pakistan even before the investigations are complete "because it will make us look biased". The conspiracy, they feel, stretches far beyond Pakistan.

Detonators seized in BombayIntelligences sources say the ISI trained the bombers and used its contacts with the smuggling syndicates to transport the explosives. But they are convinced the plan was masterminded by one of the fundamentalist organisations based in Peshawar and drawing sustenance from ultra-right wing groups in West Asia which espouse pan-Islamic causes and mostly function outside the ambit of state power.

This network of militant fundamentalists has taken upon itself the task of righting the perceived wrongs done to Islam and is financed by fundamentalists across the Muslim world.

It is with this network that the US investigators are linking the World Trade Centre bombing in New York. The Americans are also establishing if the network has links with Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rehman, the blind preacher from New Jersey who, though not charged, is said to be close to 33-year-old Mahmoud Abouhalima. Abouhalima was arrested in Egypt on March 25 for his involvement in the World Trade Centre blast.

Crucial lapses Though the Bombay Police informed mea about the Memons' escape on March 15, only imprecise names were given. Indian missions in the Gulf could not proceed with incomplete names. The full names, sent to the Cabinet Secretariat on March 15, were sent to mea only on March 17. The Centre got the passport details on March 21, four days after the Memons had fled Dubai. Impounding passports now was useless. The Pakistan High Commission was given the details in an informal note on March 23, six days after the Memons sneaked into Karachi. Foreign experts were shocked to see debris from blast sites cleared so fast. Although crucial clues were still found, this should not be done as the spread of debris is an important factor. As soon as Bombay erupted, two US investigators were on the flight to India. They concluded that even if the signatures across the blasts in Bombay and New York were not scribbled by the same hand, the same ideals guided them.

Says a top mea official: "The Americans have told us that they find it significant that the 'dynamics of targeting' in both cases is the same."

Some pieces started falling in place. People being interrogated in the US for the New York explosion seemed aware that a decision had been taken to 'punish' the perpetrators of the Bombay riots.

They did not know the specifics of the plan, but that is only natural because the organisation does not sully its hands in actual operations.

Indian intelligence sources say the fundamentalist network held a conference at Colombo on December 27 where the US, India and Egypt were marked out for punishment as countries victimising Muslims.

None of the three took much notice as such dire warnings have been routine at such meetings. But this time around, it was notempty rhetoric. There have already been bombing incidents in all the three countries.

Foreign investigators have reported that Operation Bombay was given holy sanction by the network at the meeting. By the last week of January, affiliates of the organisation from Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE had raised at least $50 million for the mission. Western sources put the figure at $100 million.

Nawaz Sharif says the Memons will be returned "gift-wrapped" to India if caught. This is where Pakistan stepped in. With the threat of being declared a terrorist state looming over it, Pakistan did not want the ISI to indulge in a unilateral venture that could be nailed at its doorstep.

But this was a perfect opportunity. In one stroke, it could harm India and identify with a larger Islamic cause. Also, since it had not funded the project there was a good chance of getting away untainted. It agreed to train the saboteurs in the rudiments of planting a bomb.

In terms of explosives technology, the 'hands' that devastated Bombay were rather amateurish. They used pencil timers which are among the crudest and simplest time devices to use. Instead of going through the delicate adjustment of a watch dial, in this case the bomber places a metal pencil with three compartments against the RDX explosive.

The steady flow of acid from the first compartment (released when the pencil top is pressed to break the glass acid ampule inside) results in a tension wire snapping and firing a bullet from the second compartment to the third, which contains a small explosive charge, detonating the entire explosive.

The amateurism was also evident in the manner in which they bought the cars from a dealer who knew them. Incidentally, both Memon and Salameh, who planted the New York bomb, were traced through the chassis numbers that survived the blasts.

But for now, the policy-makers are nervous about taking on the Islamic fundamentalists. It is easier to train their guns on Pakistan. India has been trying to get Pakistan declared a terrorist state for some time. Now it feels it can exert pressure by superimposing new skeletons over old ones. The Memons, when the noose tightened around them, booked tickets to Karachi, to India's undisguised glee.

Pan-Islamic militancy is a nasty fact of life which India, like the west, will have to live with. It is at the top political and bureaucratic levels that India has shown lack of purpose.

The US and UK sent top terrorism experts who stayed on despite being irritated that the police revealed their hotel room numbers to journalists. The US is also helping trace the origin of the captured grenades, many of which have Austrian markings.

Western sources confirm these were sold by an Austrian firm to a West Asian country and some even to Algeria. Algeria, has seen several major thefts from state armouries by fundamentalist groups and several persons have even been Western sources confirm these were sold by an Austrian firm to a West Asian country and some even to Algeria. Algeria, has seen several major thefts from state armouries by fundamentalist groups and several persons have even been executed for this.

But the Government has bungled in tracing the Memons in Dubai and then Pakistan. The process was marred by unforgivable delays.

But back in Bombay, the serial bombings have brought another realisation: whoever is targeting India has now found the soft underbelly of a soft state.

And while Bombay Police embarks on a Rs 25-crore modernisation programme to replace its 19th century muskets with self-loading rifles and carbines and buys bullet-proof jeeps, the crucial question is, would even the most diabolical of foreign brains have been able to do such damage if the communal divide had not forced members of a sullen and bitter community into a corner?

As the conspiracy unravels, involving predominantly the Muslim Bombay underworld, the BJP and its ilk will use it to make familiar noises about alleged Muslim criminality. But this is no time to score debating points. Pan-Islamic militancy is a fact of life. The West is already paranoid about it.

The last thing India, with the second largest Muslim population in the world, should do is to push its Muslims into a corner where they become vulnerable fundamentalists who sanctify violence. Bombay's Black Friday could indeed be a mere warning of much worse to come unless communal tensions are reduced at ho me. n the usually staid and tight-lipped intelligence community it has already been labelled the Mother of all Investigations. The shock-waves of the March 12 serial bombings in Bombay are still rocking not just New Delhi and Bombay but have even affected Pakistan and West Asia, and the fall-out is an increased threat for Pakistan of being declared a terrorist state by the US. PRESENNT CONDITATION AND ROLE TIGER MEMON IN PAKISTAN-Tiger Memon's activities, say intelligence sources, range from running a real-estate business to frequently visiting PoK to supervise infiltration bids and other terror operations, using his influence over whatever remains of his network in India.After 1993, Memon's name cropped up again following the arrests of Abdul Latif Shaikh and Riyaz Ali by the Maharashtra ATS in 2010, which allegedly foiled a terror plot aimed at Mumbai. The two were allegedly planning to target ONGC installations, a market and a mall in the city."The networks run by Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon are discrete, and it is Tiger who, for some time now, is under pressure from quarters in Pakistan to work for his safe haven there. Besides having a successful and legitimate real estate business, he owns several malls in Karachi," said a source.

"Besides these legitimate business operations, we also know Tiger frequently shuttles in and out of PoK to launch terror operations in India, and his name has cropped up several times in cases. We have also been told that Tiger Memon has visited terror camps in Pakistan and delivered anti-India speeches to terror recruits there," the source said.

India had repeatedly shared information with Pakistan on Tiger's activities and demanded action against him.

Investigators say that Abdul Latif Shaikh's maternal uncle is a 1993 Mumbai blast fugitive identified as Khan Bashir Ahmed Ainul Haq Khan, a close aide of Memon and his associate Javed Chikna. The ATS suspected that Bashir was the man referred to as "uncle" by the duo in their phone conversations with their handlers.

Bashir was involved in reconnaissance missions carried out at the RCF refinery along with those at the Stock Exchange and BMC headquarters prior to the 1993 serial blasts.

Bashir also attended four conspiratorial meetings in Dubai and Mumbai before the serial blasts, was involved in the landing and transportation of explosives and ammunition used in the attack, and fitted the explosives inside vehicles at Tiger Memon's residence in Mahim. Following the 1993 blasts, Bashir fled the city.

References

↑ Tiger dons new face in Dubai
↑ Tiger Memon role in blasts confirmed
↑ Plaza bombers held guilty
↑ '93 verdict: 4 of Memon family guilty
↑ Yakub, a chartered accountant and brother of fugitive terror mastermind Tiger Memon, was sentenced to death by a TADA court in 2007 after being found guilty of charges of criminal conspiracy and for arranging finances and managing its disbursement through the co-accused in the Mumbai serial blasts. Upholding the Mumbai TADA court's verdict, Supreme Court, in March, 2013, had said, "It is not a hyperbole to state that he was one of the driving spirits behind the plan." In October, 2013, Yakub applied for a presidential pardon following which, a report from the state government was sought by Home Ministry. Yakub was arrested from Kathmandu airport in 1994. He was later described by the TADA court as being the mastermind who played a key role in the conspiracy, thus "warranting death penalty". The multiple blasts had claimed 257 lives and left 713 injured. CBI, which probed the blasts cases, alleged that the conspiracy was hatched by Dawood Ibrahim and other absconding persons, including Yakub's brother Tiger Memon, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Home Ministry has decided to convey to Supreme Court that Tamil Nadu government's announcement about freeing all seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case was based on "extraneous considerations". The central government, which had moved the apex court on February 21 challenging the Tamil Nadu government decision, will file its reply to the court before March 27. Immediately after Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of the three convicts in the case on February 18, Tamil Nadu government had informed the state Assembly that a decision had been taken to remit their life sentence, along with that of four other convicts. Home Ministry had also sent two letters to the Tamil Nadu government detailing all legal and constitutional provisions which say that state governments have no power of remitting life sentences of prisoners as they are convicted under central laws.Tiger Memon family members found guilty

Tiger Memon

1993 Bombay bombings

In popular culture

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