The wounds of a victim of the 1993 Mumbai blasts are still fresh, his plea for justice is still unheard.
At that time, Tushar Deshmukh was 13 years old and was studying in 7th class in Dr. Antonio da Silva High School, Dadar. On March 12, 1993, his mother Preeti Deshmukh (38 years) had gone to Jindal Canteen in South Mumbai to deliver rotis. When she left the house, Tushar was sleeping. Mother Preeti did not wake him up, because she was going to return home early that day. But she never returned. After dusk, Mumbai was shaken by the serial bomb blasts of 1993. After delivering the rotis, Preeti left the canteen. She reached Haji Ali bus stop and boarded bus number 85 to reach home quickly. When the bus reached Century Bazaar bus stop at around 1 pm, there was a massive explosion in a taxi filled with RDX parked nearby. The blast killed everyone on the bus, including Preeti.
When Preeti did not reach home till 3 o’clock, Tushar, his grandmother Sumati, father Pradeep and the neighbors started getting worried. Everyone set out to search for him. Tushar told Outlook, “We were thinking that she might not have returned home on time because she might have been helping people injured in the blast. By that time news of serial blasts had started coming, but in the evening we reached KEM Hospital. She was not there in the injured people’s ward, where hundreds of people who survived the blast were undergoing treatment. My uncle found her in the morgue.”
Old picture of Tushar with mother
Preeti’s body, like many others, was so badly burnt that identification was difficult. Tushar told that his brother identified him from the piece of saree stuck to his body. “I saw his body in pieces, wrapped in a plastic sheet,” says Tushar. I was very young, so my family did not allow me to perform the last rites. I could never see my mother’s smiling face again. Every day, she used to inform me before going to work. On the day of the blast, it did not wake me up and disturb me because I was sleeping. I could not even meet my mother for the last time before she was killed in the blast, I grew up only with her memories.
Preeti used to run the house very hard. Facing difficulties, he brought his scattered family together. She helped her husband Pradeep to repay the loan. For that, she did the work of delivering rotis in canteens and doing sewing and embroidery. She endured domestic violence from her husband, yet she was not distracted from taking care of her husband and child. He loved singing, dancing and helping needy people. He also helped the victims of the 1992 Mumbai riots. Her son Tushar has hundreds of memories of his mother, which he remembers with a wound that will never heal.
257 people lost their lives and more than 700 were injured in the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai on March 12, 1993.
On the day Preeti died in the blast, he had planned to return home early so that he could spend some time with Tushar and visit a relative living in Pune the next day. But that meeting never happened; the relatives whom she was supposed to meet had to come to attend her funeral.
It has been 33 years since the horrific serial blasts of 1993 in Mumbai, yet many victims like Tushar are still waiting for justice. Tiger Memon, the alleged mastermind of the blasts, is still absconding and has not even been prosecuted. His brother and convicted terrorist Yakub Memon was hanged in 2015 after his mercy petitions were rejected. Tushar believes that the main masterminds of this conspiracy are still roaming free. He says, “Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, the conspirators of those blasts, are still roaming free, our system has failed to arrest them and prosecute them.” Even after three decades, we have not got justice.” He asks, ”Why did the then Chief Minister Sharad Pawar not take responsibility for such a huge tragedy and why did he not assure that the victims get justice?”
In the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai on March 12, 1993, 257 people lost their lives and more than 700 were injured. Many famous places of Mumbai were the target of these blasts, like Bombay Stock Exchange, Air India Building, Zaveri Bazaar, Plaza Cinema, Shiv Sena Bhawan, Worli’s Century Market and Mahim Fishermen Colony.
The investigating agencies later revealed that these blasts were planned by underworld people who had links with Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon. It is alleged that he had the support of terrorists from Pakistan. These blasts were considered revenge for the communal violence that broke out in Mumbai after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. This was the first planned terrorist attack on a major city in India. This attack brought profound changes in the country’s security system and anti-terrorism laws. Over the years, Tushar moved ahead in his life. His father Pradeep got married for the second time. But, the shock of losing his mother and the horrific memories of those blasts are still fresh in his mind.
Horrific scene after the blasts
Chef and writer Tushar has a car rental business and a medicine shop in Dadar. After battling family difficulties, he found a new and bigger family in his friend Yogesh Mhatre’s family. He got love and support from that family. But there was a time when at the age of just 13, he had to console his father and grandparents after his mother’s death. On the day of the blast, 13 year old Tushar’s childhood ended in an instant. His father was a drug addict. The responsibility of the entire family fell on the delicate shoulders of Tushar. He didn’t even have time to mourn the loss of his mother. It was only much later in life that he began to understand and overcome the shock of his mother’s death.
During his college days, Tushar used to visit Dr. Shubhangi Parkar at KEM Hospital for mental treatment. There was no help from any government institution or initiative to recover or recover from that shock. A compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh was given to the families of the victims immediately after the incident. Tushar’s father Pradeep Deshmukh got financial help, but he refused to help his son.
Every year on March 12, a group of families of Tushar and other victims visit the Century Bazaar Memorial and pay homage to the victims and their loved ones who died in the blast. “People show sympathy towards us, pay tribute to our relatives killed in the blasts, light candles, but the system still has a lot to do to stop such bomb blasts,” says Tushar.