On This Day: How The 1993 Mumbai Serial Blasts Changed India’s Financial Capital Forever – News18
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On March 12, 1993, 13 bomb blasts by Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon hit Bombay, killing 257 and injuring 1,400. Despite this, Mumbai’s spirit helped it rebuild and thrive.
On this day in 1993, in the span of just two hours and ten minutes between 1:30 PM and 3:40 PM, 13 powerful explosions shattered the Mumbai’s spine. (Image: PTI file)
On This Day In 1993: It was a Friday afternoon like any other. The city, then called Bombay, buzzed with its usual unrelenting energy. People rushed through their routines, traders shouted across markets and the heartbeat of India’s financial capital thumped in its usual chaotic rhythm. Then, in the span of just two hours and ten minutes, everything changed. Between 1:30 PM and 3:40 PM, 13 powerful explosions shattered the city’s spine.
Landmarks that defined Bombay – its financial district, its cinema halls, its busy markets – were ripped apart.
The Bombay Stock Exchange, the symbol of the city’s economic might, was among the first to fall.
From the towering Air India building in the south to the Sea Rock Hotel near Land’s End, no corner felt safe.
Plaza Cinema, once a hub for Bollywood dreams, lay in ruins.
Century Bazaar, a place where people once bargained over fabric and groceries, became an unrecognisable wreck.
It wasn’t just infrastructure that crumbled; Mumbai’s spirit took a hit like never before. The blasts claimed 257 lives, left 1,400 injured and scarred the city’s psyche. This wasn’t just another chapter in Mumbai’s long history of crime and gang violence.
A Calculated Act Of Vengeance
Dawood Ibrahim, the underworld kingpin who had long ruled Mumbai’s crime syndicates, was allegedly the mastermind behind the attacks. His right-hand man, Tiger Memon, reportedly played a crucial role too. It is said that Memon not only orchestrated the logistics but even offered up his own flats and garages to store the explosives.
This wasn’t an attack driven solely by money or gang rivalry. It was a calculated act of revenge. The bombings were retaliation for the communal riots that had gripped Mumbai just months earlier, in December 1992 and January 1993.
Those riots, in turn, had erupted after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The cycle of violence was endless and on that March afternoon, it reached a horrifying climax.
Until then, Mumbai’s underworld had largely operated in the shadows – gold smuggling, extortion and gang warfare. It was a murky world, but one that had its own rules.
Dawood Ibrahim – a police constable’s son who had clawed his way to the top – had been a big name in that world. But with the 1993 blasts, he crossed a line. His gang was no longer just another mafia outfit; it had declared war on the city itself.
Mumbai – A City Too Familiar With Tragedy
Sadly, the horror of 1993 was just the beginning. The years that followed would bring more bloodshed and more terror.
In 2003, Mumbai froze again as bombs tore through two of its most cherished sites – the Gateway of India and the jewellery hub of Zaveri Bazaar.
In 2006, a series of blasts ripped through its suburban train network during peak rush hour, killing over 180 people.
And then, in November 2008, came the unthinkable – terrorists held the city hostage for 60 hours in a series of coordinated attacks that killed 166 people.
The Investigation Timeline
Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon slipped through the grasp of law enforcement, evading capture even as a massive manhunt ensued. In 1994, Yakub Memon, Tiger Memon’s brother, was apprehended.
He was found guilty of orchestrating, financing and facilitating the attacks by arranging training and procuring vehicles used in the bombings. In July 2007, he was sentenced to death.
Yakub Memon was executed at Nagpur Central Jail on July 30, 2015.
The Mumbai Police Crime Branch, alongside a Special Task Force led by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), detained approximately 193 individuals in connection with the case.
Out of them, around 140 faced trial, while a few died before the proceedings concluded. Ultimately, nearly 100 individuals were convicted, while 23 were acquitted.
In June 2017, a special court found six key figures guilty of planning and executing the attacks. Among them were Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Mohammed Dossa, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Karimullah Sheikh and Tahir Merchant. Their conviction was a significant breakthrough in the prolonged legal battle tied to the 1993 Mumbai blasts.
These devastating bombings not only left a permanent scar on Mumbai but also exposed the deep-seated ties between Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Despite the years that have passed, Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim remain on the run, their whereabouts still unknown.
The Indomitable Spirit of Mumbai
From the ashes of the 1993 blasts, something remarkable emerged – the supposed ‘Spirit of Mumbai.’ Strangers became heroes.
Ordinary people flagged down cabs to rush the injured to hospitals. Blood banks overflowed with donations.
By the next morning, offices reopened. Not because the city had healed, but because it had no choice. Life had to go on.
In 2006, when bombed-out trains stood lifeless on the tracks, slum dwellers ran in with whatever they had – bedsheets, cloth, bare hands – to help pull out survivors. I
n 2005, when floods drowned the city, people shared food, water and even their homes with stranded strangers. This wasn’t just resilience. It was something deeper. It was survival, written into the DNA of Mumbai.
Because if there’s one thing history has proven, it’s this – no matter how many times Mumbai is attacked, it refuses to stay broken. It stumbles, it bleeds, but it never surrenders. The 1993 blasts shook Mumbai to its core. But they also proved something else. Mumbai will always rise.
