Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts by S Hussain Zaidi

Author:S Hussain Zaidi [Zaidi, S Hussain]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Literary Collections, Essays
ISBN: 9789351180791
Google: Vf0QBQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00DOZB2S2
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2014-11-14T18:30:00+00:00

Yeba Yaqub

When Tiger had begun assembling his group, Yaqub, swept by a wave of enthusiasm, had pledged his support, though he had not known precisely how he could help. However, in his careful planning, Tiger had taken into account Yaqub’s strengths and assets. His brother, Majid Khan, was a builder, and owned a successful construction company, MK Builders. Yaqub himself had several warehouses and godowns in and around Bombay where Tiger could safely store his RDX. Tiger had chosen the warehouses in New Bombay and Thane.

More than eight tons of RDX had been landed at Shekhadi and Dighi on 3 and 7 February, about three-quarters of it on the latter day. Tiger had divided the RDX into two, and entrusted Chikna and Yeba Yaqub with half the total quantity each. Yaqub had stashed his share in about a hundred jute bags, each containing about forty kilograms of RDX, in his brother’s godown at the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) sheds in New Bombay.

Yaqub had been satisfied that he had made his contribution to the holy war. But with all those inconvenient arrests and tales of Maria’s ruthlessness, he was losing peace of mind. He resolved to shift the RDX from his brother’s godown to another location. At least, in case the RDX was discovered, his brother would not be involved. The only difficulty was finding a place large enough for all those bags, which was also close enough to the present storage so that they would not attract attention during transportation. He decided to store the RDX in Mumbra and Kashimira, close to New Bombay, in warehouses belonging to his builder-friends Shahid Gehlot and Mohammed Jindran.

Despite its proximity to Bombay, real-estate prices were very low in the predominantly Muslim township of Mumbra. Shahid and Amin Gehlot were small-time builders who worked in the township and had constructed several buildings there, including one called Mobin Nagar in Kausa village at Mumbra.

On 17 March, Yaqub drove to Mumbra to meet them at their offices. He asked them for an empty ground-floor room to store some important goods. He did not disclose the nature of the goods. The Gehlots knew Yaqub well, and they had no reason to turn him down, especially as they weren’t using the space at that time. They also knew he would return the favour some day. They agreed, but said that they had only one room free. This room, in the Mobin Nagar building, measured barely 500 square feet.

Yaqub summoned masons and bricked up the only window in the room, so that no one could accidentally look in. That evening, he hired a tempo and three labourers to move thirty-two bags of RDX to the new location. There were also ten bags of gelatine stored there. Yaqub had also bought about fifty jute bags of dried Bombay duck, which he stacked on top of the RDX. The rest he would store in Jindran’s shed in Kashimira early the following day. By this time Mukadam and others had mentioned his name to the police, and he knew it was time for him to go underground.

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