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On March 12, 1993, 13 explosions of Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon hit Bombay, killing 257 and wounding 1,400. Despite this, Mumbai's spirit helped him rebuild and prosper.
On this day of 1993, in the span of only two hours and ten minutes between 1:30 pm and 3:40 pm, 13 powerful explosions destroyed Mumbal's spine. (Image: PTI file)
On this day of 1993: It was a Friday afternoon like any other. The city, then called Bombay, buzzed with its usual relentless energy. People hurried through their routines, merchants shouted in the markets and beats of the financial capital of India hit their usual chaotic rhythm. Then, in the period of only two hours and ten minutes, everything changed. Between 1:30 pm and 3:40 pm, 13 powerful explosions destroyed the spine of the city.
The reference points that defined Bombay, their financial district, their movie theaters, their occupied markets) were destroyed.
The Bombay Stock Exchange, the symbol of the economic power of the city, was one of the first to fall.
From the imposing Air India building in the south to the Sea Rock Hotel near Land's End, no corner felt safe.
Plaza Cinema, once a center for Bollywood's dreams, lay in ruins.
Century Bazaar, a place where people once negotiated on fabric and groceries, became an unrecognizable shipwreck.
It was not only the infrastructure that collapsed; Mumbai's spirit received a success as never before. The explosions charged 257 lives, left 1,400 injured and marked the city psyche. This was not just another chapter in the long history of crime violence and Mumbai gangs.
A calculated act of revenge
Dawood Ibrahim, the nurse of the underworld who had long ruled the Mumbai crime unions, was supposedly the intellectual author behind the attacks. According to reports, his man to the right, Tiger Memon, also played a crucial role. It is said that Memon not only orchestrated the logistics, but even offered his own floors and garages to store the explosives.
This was not an attack driven only for money or gang rivalry. It was a calculated act of revenge. The bombings were retaliation for the communal disturbances that had grabbed Mumbai only a few months before, in December 1992 and January 1993.
Those disturbances, in turn, had exploded after the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The cycle of violence was endless and that March afternoon, it reached a horrible climax.
Until then, Mumbai's underworld had largely operated in the shadows: smuggling of gold, extortion and gang war. It was a murky world, but that had its own rules.
Dawood Ibrahim, the son of a police officer who had made his way to the top, had been a great name in that world. But with the 1993 explosions, he crossed a line. His gang was no longer just another mafia outfit; He had declared war to the city itself.
Mumbai: a city too familiar with the tragedy
Unfortunately, the horror of 1993 was just the beginning. The years that followed would bring more bloodshed and more terror.
In 2003, Mumbai froze again when the bombs passed through two of his most precious sites: the entrance door of India and the jewelry center of Zaveri Bazaar.
In 2006, a series of shaved explosions through its suburban trains network during peak peak time, killing more than 180 people.
And then, in November 2008, the unthinkable arrived: the terrorists kept the city hostage for 60 hours in a series of coordinated attacks that killed 166 people.
The research timeline
Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon slipped through the application of the law, evading the capture even when a massive mass occurred. In 1994, Yakub Memon, Tiger Memon's brother, was arrested.
It was declared guilty of orchestrating, financing and facilitating attacks by organizing training and acquiring vehicles used in bombings. In July 2007, he was sentenced to death.
Yakub Memon was executed in the central prison of Nagpur on July 30, 2015.
The Mumbai Police Crimes Rama, together with a special task force directed by the Central Investigation Office (CBI), arrested approximately 193 individuals in relation to the case.
Of them, around 140 faced trial, while some died before the procedure concluded. Ultimately, almost 100 people were convicted, while 23 were acquitted.
In June 2017, a special court found six key figures guilty of planning and executing attacks. Among them were Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Mohammed Dossa, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Karimullah Sheikh and Tahir Merchant. His sentence was a significant advance in the prolonged legal battle linked to Mumbai's explosions of 1993.
These devastating bombings not only left a permanent scar in Mumbai, but also presented the deep ties between the company D of Dawood Ibrahim and the intelligence between Pakistan services (ISI).
Despite the years that have passed, Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim remain fleeing, their whereabouts are still unknown.
Mumbai's indomitable spirit
From the ashes of the 1993 explosions, something remarkable emerged: the alleged 'spirit of Mumbai'. The strangers became heroes.
Common people marked taxis to hurry the wounded to hospitals. Blood banks overflowed with donations.
The next morning, the offices reopened. Not because the city has cured, but because it had no choice. Life had to continue.
In 2006, when the bombed trains were lifeless on the roads, the inhabitants of the marginal neighborhoods ran with what they had (sheets, fabrics, naked hands) to help take out the survivors. Yo
In 2005, when floods drowned the city, people shared food, water and even their homes with strange strangers. This was not just resilience. It was something deeper. It was survival, written in Mumbai's DNA.
Because if there is something that history has demonstrated, it is this: it does not matter how many times it is attacked to Mumbai, it refuses to stay broken. It stumbles, bleeds, but never surrenders. The 1993 explosions shook Mumbai in their nucleus. But they also demonstrated something else. Mumbai will always get up.
