Mumbai Blasts: 24 Yrs Later, Has Memon’s Hanging Brought Justice?

Today, it’s been 24 years since 13 serial blasts rocked the city on 12 March, 1993, killing 257 people and injuring over 700 others. But despite the intervening decades, memories of the day are still fresh among survivors and justice still appears unresolved. Victims say that with the main conspirators still at large, the hanging of accused Yakub Memon last year does nothing to address justice for survivors.

How do you compensate for all those innocent lives we lost?

asks Kamla Malkani, a Worliresident who was injured in the blasts at Century Bazaar, “And those whosurvived, they are living with the disabilities even today. Following theblasts, a glass sheet had collapsed on my head, and I’m still living with thepain. Every time I move my neck, I’m reminded of that day. How do youcompensate for this life-long tragedy inflicted on people who did nothing todeserve it? It was something that we’d never seen before, and I pray no oneever has to.”

Recollecting the unfortunate afternoon, Kirti Ajmera, a 59-year-old businessman residing in Malad (West) said that he had gone to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for some work when he was suddenly thrown off his feet, several metres away from where he was standing. Within seconds, Ajmera had lost consciousness and when he resumed sense several minutes later, he noticed that he was covered all over with his own blood, the right side of his face had disintegrated, his right ear had fallen to his chin, his hand had come off its joints, only shreds of his safari suit remained, and thousands of glass pieces were lodged into his skin. 

But when he looked around him, he felt fortunate. In that debris of scattered human torsos, limbs and corpses, he felt lucky to be awake.

There were people around me, several of them; but I couldn’t see anyone alive. I mustered all the energy I had and walked towards the staircase of a nearby bank outlet. An acquaintance spotted me and informed my family while a taxi driver offered to help me to a hospital. We visited two to three hospitals, but because there were so many victims, no beds were available in either. The driver then took me to GT hospital. Even GT was full, but I asked the driver to drop me there. I was afraid I’d die in his cab. I was holding my face and my right hand in my left. At the hospital, I went to the first ward I could see and sat by the feet of a man lying on the first bed. When the doctor came, he examined the man and said that he had died out of shock. That’s how I got a bed.

Kirti Ajmera

The businessman,who still lives with hundreds of glass shreds lodged in his body, said that thedoctors at GT were sceptical about operating on him as he had lost all hisblood following the blasts; barely two litres remained. He couldn’t be givenanaesthesia as the lack of blood could slip him into a coma, so Ajmera took 99 stitches on his face while being completely alert, pretending to bedead.

After his family arrived at the hospital by evening, he was moved toHinduja hospital. Following a night of blood transfusions, the doctors examinedhim and discovered that several glass pieces had penetrated into his body, onhis lungs, very close to his heart. If they penetrated his heart, doctors wereafraid, he would succumb. One after the other, the operations began and now, asof two decades later, Ajmera has undergone over 40 such procedures with theoperations still ongoing.

There is no question of justice. Since the blasts happened years ago, not one representative of the government has approached us, asked for us, consoled us, or bothered to compensate us for the lakhs of rupees we’ve spent on my treatment. The usual compensation of Rs 25,000 was not given either. And it’s not that they don’t know about us. We have been written about in the press. But still, the government hasn’t bothered. No one has come to us even as a human being. That’s why I say, there has been absolutely no justice. Yakub Memon’s hanging did not make any difference to me

Kirti Ajmera, speaking to The Quint at his Malad home

Meanwhile,Vinayak Devrukhkar, a Lower Parel resident who lost his brother (11) and sister(19) in the blasts said, “The day Yakub Memon was hanged, 22 years hadpassed. That was justice delayed, extremely delayed. And not all theperpetrators were punished. The main conspirators of the blasts are stillalive, free. They’ve lived their share, and comfortably so. Unless they arearrested, prosecuted and punished, these blasts will continue to take place,and innocents, like my siblings, will continue to pay the price. When I thinkof that day, I still feel uneasy.”

There were burning cars all around, bodies that wouldn’t move, buildings ripped off their glass, collapsed onto the ground beneath us. When my sister and brother were found in a hospital, their faces were charred beyond recognition. It was impossible to know it was them, but my father made the identification through birthmarks and the few shreds of clothing on their bodies. That’s all that had remained of them.

Vinayak Devrukhkar

Another survivor, 50-year-old Naresh Saraf, who used to run a handicapped person’s tea stall until it was uprooted by civic authorities recently, said that he was in a Churchgate-bound local train on the fateful day when he heard a deafening explosion as the train began to leave Matunga railway station. He was dizzy soon after, lying on the compartment floor, but awake enough to hear the shouting passengers, to see the smoke and blood-filled bogie, and to feel his right leg uprooted from his knee. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but he knew already that he had permanently lost a limb.

“I used to be ahardware supplier, but after that day, I was rendered disabled. The main sourceof income in my family was lost. It’s not just me who suffered in the blasts,it was my entire family. And if you look at it in a humanitarian way, you’ll know thatnot just thousand people, but thousand families were victimised in thatatrocity. Has anything been done to rehabilitate us? Nothing, not one thing.Those men killed, and we were killed. The story ends there. There is no rolefor the government to play, at least not one that they bothered taking up,”said Saraf.

(This article was first published on 12 March 2016. It is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark the anniversary of the 1993 Bombay blasts.