Mumbai: Retired IPS officer Rakesh Maria, the former top cop who spearheaded the investigation into the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, told The Asian Age that this set of convictions in the case was a big achievement, as most of the conspirators had been brought to justice. But the case was far from over.
“It is an achievement for the Mumbai police and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but the case is still ‘far from a final closure,” he said. “These convicts are among the planners and conspirators who were part of the attack, unlike the earlier lot, which consisted mostly of foot soldiers,” Maria said. “It is good that they have been brought to justice. However, there would be no sense of closure till we get Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Javed Chikna and a few other key absconders.”
Mr Maria, who was a deputy commissioner with the Mumbai traffic police in March 1993 when the 12 serial blasts ripped the city, had succeeded in getting first link in the investigation, which led to the disclosure of the conspiracy.
According to the blast investigators, the attacks were allegedly orchestrated by Dawood and his men, with the help of Pakistan’s ISI, which took care of the training of those who executed it and also supplied them with the explosives used like the deadly RDX, gelatine sticks, AK-56 rifles and hand-grenades. The police had formed a team of over 100 officers and personnel, who tracked down the involvement of the Memons with the help of a scooter and a Maruti van, both of which were loaded with RDX. “Those were the days when there were no technical intelligence or mobile phones that would have come handy for the investigation into the case. It was a task to find out the roles of each of the accused and gather evidence pertaining to their involvement,” Mr Maria said.
