Two decades on, where are the key conspirators of 1993 blasts?

Security experts opine that apart from raising the rhetoric of getting these dreaded criminals back on occasions, none of the governments since 1993 has made any concentrated effort to hunt them down.

It has been over two decades since two police sub-inspectors from Worli police station chased Imtiaz Ghavate through the slums and across railway tracks in Bandra to make the first arrest in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. Ghavate was the first to reveal the complicity of dreaded mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, and that of the key conspirator Ibrahim Mustaq Memon alias Tiger Memon.

File photo of people rushing a victim to the hospital from Air India building after the bomb blast in 1993. On March 12, 1993, within a span of two hours, a series of 12 bomb explosions rocked Mumbai killing 257 and leavingmore than 700 people injured. (PTI photo)

But was Dawood Ibrahim or Tiger Memon the key conspirator of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts ever placed as “Priority No 1” for Indian intelligence agency chiefs to focus on? Security experts opine that apart from raising the rhetoric of getting these dreaded criminals back on occasions, none of the governments since 1993 has made any concentrated effort to hunt them down.Tiger Memon had called for retribution, planned, organised, trained persons, smuggled RDX and executed the blasts.

Tiger Memon was still in Dubai with his family members when the blast happened, before settling permanently in Pakistan. When the TADA court gave its verdict on December 4, 2006, 35 key accused were still absconding.

Anwar Theba, the man behind the explosion at Centaur Hotel remains absconding, and neither has the government bothered to locate him or know of his whereabouts. The same holds true for Javed Dawood Tailor alias Javed Chikna who along with Tiger Memon and Theba, was key to the blast conspiracy, and had even imparted weapons training to other accused.

Neither has there been any mention of Munaf Halari who bought scooters for the blast, or of Mohammed Tainur Phansopkar who planted the bomb at Bombay Stock Exchange where 84 persons were killed and 218 persons were injured.

Shoddy efforts from the political community has seen people like Mohammed Ahmed Dosa flourishing in West Asia and becoming one of the world’s biggest hawala traders, said a senior Maharashtra police officer.