The wrecked Bombay Stock Exchange: A concerted attempt to destabilise the economy? The wrecked Bombay Stock Exchange: A concerted attempt to destabilise the economy?

As a metaphor for modern India, Bombay has no equal. As a target for terrorists bent on sending a destructive message, it is perhaps even more so.

That reality hit home with crushing force last week as the city was shaken to its high-rise foundations by a sequence of explosions on carefully-selected and highly vulnerable targets, a majority of them the most visible symbols of the city's status as the country's financial and commercial nerve centre.

For a metropolis that had barely recovered from the communal frenzy that took over 600 lives in December and January, the latest disaster came like a series of frenzied hammer blows.

In the space of just over two-and-a-half hours on a Friday afternoon, international terrorism, in its most macabre and frightening form, rampaged through Bombay, shattering buildings and taking a deadly toll of human lives.

Even the traditional targets of terrorist bombs - Lebanon, London, Ireland, Germany in the late 70s, and New York earlier this month, have never been victim to this kind of sequential bombings on a single day and with such a massive body count. Two days after Black Friday, the tally of deaths had crossed 300 with 1,500 injured, many of them critically.

In addition, an unestimated number, the police believe, were simply vapourised in explosions powerful enough to tear through four levels of concrete flooring, reduce a double-decker bus to the size of a mangled Maruti, fling people and debris more than a hundred feet away, and shatter window panes at four times that distance.

Rescue efforts at the Stock Exchange: A combination of remarkable grit and steady nerves Rescue efforts at the Stock Exchange: A combination of remarkable grit and steady nerves

"I can't believe what is happening to this city," says Alyque Padamsee, ad-man, theatre personality and a member of an independent city peace committee formed after the riots. "We used to believe that something like this could never' happen here. Now we know that anything can happen."

In its gruesome totality, it was a nightmare come true on a much more horrific scale than anything conjured up by the city's violence-oriented movie makers. Even for a country by now hardened to terrorist strikes and communal mayhem, the cold-blooded, clinical and perfectly-planned explosions seemed to be the ultimate act of insanity.

There were a few minutes left for trading to end at the annexe of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), a 29-storey building that overlooks the nearby port area and naval base. After many days since the post-budget gloom, business was beginning to look up.

At 1:26 p.m., an explosion ripped apart the two-level basement parking area of the building. It shattered offices two floors above - housing bank branches - and moved outward to engulf a crowd of share application form hawkers, passersby and roadside food sellers getting ready to serve a lunch-time crowd.

"It was like an atom bomb during Diwali, only a million times more powerful," says Arjun Marfatia, a Baroda-based broker who was visiting the exchange at that time.

A victim at the Air India Building: Helping hands A victim at the Air India Building: Helping hands

Marfatia, who was near the ring when the explosion came, saw smoke billowing out of the staircases and flames beginning to reach out in the darkness - the power supply had blinked out.

He fought his way out of a side entrance along with about 8,000 people who normally throng the building during business hours.

The explosive device, which investigators say was placed in a car in the basement parking area and activated by a timer device, claimed at least 50 lives, and injured about 200 people. Barely nine minutes later, another explosion rocked the grain trading centre at Narsi Natha Street, near the Victoria Terminus railway station.

Compared to the BSE blast, it was minor in terms of magnitude and casualties. But before anybody could grasp the connection, a rapid series of blasts devastated 11 other targets, including the Air India headquarters at Nariman Point - the country's financial and commercial hub - the jewellery market at Zaveri Bazar, two Air India-managed Centaur hotels in north Bombay and the Welcomgroup's Sea Rock Hotel.

Other targets included a petrol pump near the Shiv Sena headquarters at Shivaji Park, and two movie theatres in Central Bombay in heavily populated areas. Between the first explosion at 1:26 p.m. and the last at 3:54 p.m. at the Sea Rock, Bombay streets were littered with a trail of blood and destruction.

The Clues

The leads on which investigations now depend: 1. Bombs went off in the rooms of Hotel Sea Rock and the Centaur hotels at Juhu and Santa Cruz. In what could indicate a linking pattern, at all three hotels there were occupants who had paid for their rooms in advance, given false names and addresses, and had left the hotels with their room keys at the time of the blast. Hotel staffers are being questioned about these occupants and with the help of descriptions from them, identikit sketches are being developed.

2. Hand grenades were lobbed from a moving vehicle at Mahim's Macchimar Nagar. Eyewitnesses from the scene are helping the police in constructing identikit sketches of the vehicle's occupants.

3. Registration and chassis numbers of the cars - some of which are likely to be found in the debris which the police are now combing through - that were used in the bombings could provide vital clues. While most of the cars are expected to be stolen vehicles, those that are not could help move the investigations further.

4. An abandoned Maruti van found by the police and its cache of arms and ammunition. Other articles recovered from the van include two plastic prayer beads, two small plastic bottles filled with water and labelled 'holy water' in Arabic script and a packet of dates.

5. A Sri Lankan national detained on March 6 - and was subsequently arrested - who had changed large amounts of foreign currency with the help of stolen travellers cheques at a city hotel.

6. The abandoned van was traced to Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant, who flew to Dubai with his family on the day of the blasts. However, the van could have been stolen by terrorists. Police are investigating Memon's antecedents.

7. Two scooters found with about 8 kg of explosives (RDX with PETN) each which was wired to the ignition.



Though the stock exchange and Air India building blasts were significant in terms of targeting the city's financial nerve centre - Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar claimed the exercise was conducted "to destabilise the economy" - the explosion at Century Bazar in Worli, was the most visibly destructive.

At 2:58 p.m., a double-decker bus run by Bombay's transport authority BEST, ran over a pot-hole which, according to investigators, had a plastic pressure-based explosive device, which blew the bus to bits.

Thirty people are estimated to have died inside the bus, and the blast decimated three nearby apartment buildings, besides flattening passersby and vehicles with shrapnel and concussion. The injured numbered between 500 and 600.

At the moment of the blast, Dr Shalini Sabnis, who runs the Worli women's hospital, had just finished a telephone conversation with a friend who had informed her about the BSE explosion.

She was still holding the receiver when the blast ripped through the hospital. She reacted quickly.

Even though her consultation room facing the street was reduced to rubble, she checked on her patients - six women and two infants - found them safe and herded them out, only to see a horrific sight.

Cars were in flames, and people dismembered and bloodied ran about blindly, screaming for help.

Harsh Thakkar, a commerce graduate from Bombay's Sydenham College, was returning to his Worli home with his brother Kumar in his Maruti after viewing the carnage at the Stock Exchange, when he approached the site: "Suddenly there was an explosion," says Thakkar, "a red ball of fire rolled towards me."

It was then that Thakkar saw something fly through the open window of the car. He turned and saw a severed hand lying on the back seat: "There was nothing left of the bus. The cars ahead of me and behind were smashed. But we were alive. It was an absolute miracle."

Bombay, on that day, was full of similar miraculous escape stories: brokers leaving the stock exchange seconds before the explosion, cars pulling out of the petrol pump just before it ignited and people passing targeted buildings minutes before they blew up.

But providential escapes apart, the real reason why a lot more people didn't lose their lives at the blast sites is because of Bombay's legendary qualities: a welcome combination of sheer grit, calm nerves, and a remarkable degree of unselfishness.

At the BSE, in-house security quickly took charge to seal off the flaming entrance and usher people to a safe exit. After the initial panic had subsided, people calmly went down the steps; there were no stampedes.

And those outside who were safe, rushed in almost immediately to pull out the dead and injured. And some did so, despite being injured themselves.

Jasmin Shah, an employee at a nearby branch of the Bank of Maharashtra , was on her way to the exchange. On the steps when the explosion happened, she staggered under the impact and tried to go back to the bank.

Hardly realising that she had glass shards in her arms, legs and stomach, some two inches long, she forced herself to keep going till she reached her office across the street.

Maruti Pawar, a peon with Sobhagya Advertising, was passing by and rushed in to help with lifting the dead from the basement and the street, pulling away many of the injured to a safer area till ambulances could take them to the hospitals.

Asvin Seth, a sub-broker with his office near the exchange, rushed out when he heard the explosion, and immediately started tending to the injured on the street.

Explosion near the passport office at Worli: Gruesome sight Explosion near the passport office at Worli: Gruesome sight

These scenes were repeated all over Bombay. At the Air India building - where the first two floors were badly damaged, passersby-turned-rescue workers piled the injured into whatever vehicle was available, with obliging owners ferrying them to hospitals.

A driver who did not stop when signalled was cursed and his car stoned. At the Sea Rock, the staff took over smoothly and efficiently. The visiting English national hockey team manager Alan Walker recounts how after the blast that knocked out a section of the 18th floor, his players, who were sunning themselves by the poolside, were stunned.

"Immediately there was a lot of staff directing us - there was no panic." And where there was, mainly among employees and visitors at the Air India building - stairwells jammed with people and elevators overloaded - outsiders helped calm them down.

In fact, there was so much help from the public at the scenes of destruction that it prompted what is possibly the best tribute to them, from the Bombay Fire Brigade chief D.G. Kulkarni: "Our biggest problem was help from the enthusiastic mobs."

Anybody who could, chipped in. The fire brigade rushed tenders to the stock exchange within 10 minutes of the blast. The city has only 35 tenders, of which 20 were sent to Dalal Street.

As the blasts spread, the fire department was completely stretched, speeding from one bomb site to the other, with ordinary people helping to plug the gap. The navy sent down a contingent from its base, the army offered help and the police - after a controversial record during the January riots - moved quickly.

Besides immediately fanning out to the trouble spots and positioning themselves in previously riot-torn areas to forestall any chances of violence, many police vans roamed around the city using public address systems to appeal for blood donations.

Meanwhile, Samaritans did their bit by going around with placards bearing the same requests. Hundreds of willing donors queued up at the city's 11 blood banks. Everyone seemed willing to help.

In the city's hospitals, the scene was one of overflowing morgues, packed operation theatres and overworked staff. As victims began to pour into St George's Hospital from the BSE, for instance, its doctors went into overdrive.

Says Dr Ashok Kamble, the resident medical officer: "The experience culled during the riots was invaluable. We didn't even take two minutes after the first few bodies came in to organise ourselves."

In half an hour, St George's had received 80 injured, and 11 DOAs (dead-on-arrival). People were being brought in with multiple trauma injuries, fractures, abdominal ruptures - an entire spectrum of cases requiring immediate attention.

All 90 doctors on its rolls were brought in, as were almost 300 support staff. The hospital's 40-strong dentist force helped suture wounds. As hands began to fall short, volunteers from the Directorate of Health Services and Medical Education rushed in. And among the first few to offer help at the hospital were workers of the Shiv Sena.

Thankfully, the collective shock and outrage as well as the choice of targets prevented a greater holocaust - the fear of communal bloodletting. Once the news about the targets spread, so did the realisation that few vested interests in Bombay would have the capacity or the expertise to pull off such a co-ordinated operation.

And as it also proved that it was not directed at people from any particular community, everybody banded together to face the daunting challenge. "This is a time for all of us to stay together," said Keola Prasad, a taxi-driver from Varanasi, whose windscreen sports a prominent trishul and a Shiv Sena sticker. "It is obviously the work of outsiders."

His idol, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, for once refrained from provocative statements and publicly said pretty much the same thing. This time around, Bombay's trauma was localised. Except in the affected areas, life went on normally, with shops and businesses staying open.

There was minimal panic buying of groceries, unlike in January, and no discernible trend of emergency cash withdrawals from banks. Also, a touch of the characteristic Bombay defiance, of not taking things lying down. Fear and tension are still prevalent, close to a week since the bombings.

But the reaction is a little different this time. "After January, I seriously considered moving out of Bombay," says Mohan Mahapatra, general manager, marketing, with a city-based food products company at Masjid Bunder, who had moved out of Ahmedabad two years ago to escape its increasing communalisation. "But now I've changed my mind. No mad bomber is going to tell me what to do."

The Investigation

A Paucity Of Clues

Bomb disposal squad at Worli: Groping in the dark Bomb disposal squad at Worli: Groping in the dark

Who were the mad bombers? And what was their motive? These were the questions that haunted the country as the frantic manhunt for the bombers slipped into high gear.

Inexplicably, no organisation has come forward to claim responsibility for the explosions, as would be expected in a case where the choice of targets indicated an aim to create economic destabilisation.

However, the very sophistication of the modus operandi - at least seven of the blasts were triggered by car bombs - and the use of plastic explosive which is not available in India in the quantities used, point to the involvement of an international outfit.

Initial investigations make it clear that high explosives such as RDX and TNT were used and set off by timers. "The use of these explosives and detonating mechanisms requires extremely sophisticated training and expertise," says police bomb disposal expert Nandkumar Chaugule.

While forensic reports may provide some clues later, bomb experts have begun deciphering the signature scrawled across every deadly shrapnel.

This will provide them with clues as to the sophistication of the timers, the nature of the explosives and the expertise needed to assemble them. Most police and intelligence sources are emphatic that there is no terrorist group in the country capable of pulling off such an operation.

Moreover, the sheer impact pointed to imported explosives rather than the normally used nitroglycerine. This, in turn, meant plastic, gelatine or the American RDX.

Most experts veered towards plastic, more specifically the C4 variety used in Pakistan, which flows from the United States and West Asia. The Indian Army uses the PEK variety, but has not reported any large quantities missing from its stock.

The Air India basement: Strategic target The Air India basement: Strategic target

Gelatine is locally available but it would have taken at least four months to smuggle in sufficient quantities of the industrial explosive and the risk of exposure was too high, says B.K. Singh, who heads Delhi's bomb disposal squad.

Terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir have used C4 plastic bombs, but never to such effect. The Bombay explosions were vastly superior and sophisticated.

That, says explosives expert P.S. Bhushan, is because the power of the blast can be magnified with proper placing such as inside a closed car, converting the automobile into one huge device.

"More importantly, they knew how to direct the thrust of the explosion exactly where they wanted. Amateurs normally end up creating huge craters in the ground, where the power of the device gets expended."

The timer is a delicate mechanism. When an amateur tried to plant a bomb in Delhi a couple of years ago, he ended up getting blown up himself. Even the Babbar Khalsa, the only militant group in the country that has specialised in the use of bombs, has used time devices sparingly.

Similarly, Kashmir terrorists have preferred the remote controlled devices to blast isolated military trucks. Even the LTTE, which used RDX to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, has usually gone in for suicide attacks.

"It would need a team of at least 10 electronics experts, with the nerve and experience of handling explosives, to carry out such an operation," says B.K. Singh. The transistor bombs that ripped through Delhi in 1985 were far cruder and were assembled by nearly 200 radio mechanics.

The explosive used in Bombay - at least 300 kg would have been required - must have come by the sea route. But, say Home Ministry sources, it was not a question of an Indian group using foreign help. Alter all, such explosives are not for sale and not available. It was more a case of foreigners utilising Indian grievances.

Explosive History



Meenambakkam blast Meenambakkam blast A bomb exploded at Meenambakkam Airport, Madras, killing 30 and injuring 37. The Tamil Eelam Army, a small Sri Lankan militant group, was responsible.



May 10 and 11,1985: Over 100 transistor bombs exploded in New Delhi, mainly in slum colonies, killing 85. An equal number of bombs were defused. The Babbar Khalsa was responsible.



June 23, 1985: Air India flight 182, from Toronto to Bombay, exploded in mid-air and crashed off the Irish coast, killing all 329 persons on board. The bomb was kept in the luggage hold. Pro-Khalistan elements were suspected. March 15, 1987: The Madras-Trichy Rockfort Express capsized over a blown-up rail bridge about 50 km from Trichy, 25 were killed and 139 injured. The Tamil Nadu Viduthalai Padhai (Tamil Nadu Liberation Troops) was responsible. May 21,1991: Rajiv Gandhi and 17 others died at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu when a human bomb, Dhanu, triggered the plastic explosive RDX, which she carried on her belt. LTTE alleged to be behind the hit. May 9, 1992: Punjab Minister Maninderjit Singh Bitta was attacked in Amritsar with a car bomb parked on the road. The explosion killed 12 and injured Bitta. The explosive used was 8-10 kg of yellow RDX. Another car bomb, which did not explode, was planted on an alternate route.



However, to store such a huge quantity of explosives, to shelter the whole team, and to purchase the cars would require substantial local assistance and massive financing.

Further, dry runs would have been conducted for at least a week. A pliable Indian connection, hungry for revenge and totally motivated, would also be required to provide local assistance and back-up.

But even the Indian connection must have been of a certain level. Entry into the BSE basement parking, where the bomb exploded, is restricted to members who pay Rs 1.5 lakh as deposit to reserve a single parking slot.

The police feel it is unlikely that a BSE member could be involved. More plausible is the theory that the terrorists had infiltrated the BSE security system and somehow laid their hands on the car stickers that allow access.

Either way, the terrorist or accomplice would have to be able to pose as a wealthy stockbroker.

Much the same level of people would have been required to check into the three five-star hotels.

So far, all the investigators have are the names, obviously false, in the check-in registers. Room 1840 of the Sea Rock Hotel was booked in the name of a 'Mr Alvani'.

According to the hotel staff, an advance of Rs 8,000 was paid on March 8. He checked in the morning before the blast and had not checked out, but had instead left the hotel taking the room key with him.

Similarly, at the Bombay Airport Centaur, 'Ramesh Saxena' checked in on March 11 around 3:20p.m. and was out of the hotel with the key at the time of the blast. He had paid an advance of Rs 5,100 for the room.

At the Juhu Centaur, a man first signed as 'Gyanchandani Lalit', then scored it out and registered himself as 'Sanjeev Rai'. He occupied Room 3078 and was out at the time of the blast. He also paid an advance on checking in.

Preliminary investigations show that the handwriting in the three registers do not tally, which indicates that three operatives were used. According to police sources, in two places - Sea Rock and Airport Centaur - they had given the same fictitious address.

Meanwhile, the sole suspect picked up for questioning is a Sri Lankan travelling on a fake Turkish passport. The suspect, who was detained one day after the blasts, had changed $1,20,000 at the Oberoi Hotel where he checked in on March 5.

He was first arrested on March 6 after he presented forged American Express bank traveller's cheques and was later found to be travelling on a forged passport. He was let off on bail.

While the police with held details, his remand application said that the Cuffe Parade police, who arrested him, had asked their counterparts in Tamil Nadu to check whether he had links with Tamil extremists. But the fact that he was released on bail seems to indicate that he may not be connected to the Bombay blasts.

Shortly after the explosions, the police recovered four hand-grenades, seven new AK-56 rifles and 14 magazines from a maroon Maruti van, MFC 1972, parked near the Worli Century Bazaar bomb site. Also recovered from the van were two plastic prayer beads, two small plastic bottles filled with water and labelled "holy water" in Arabic and a packet of dates.

But it seems ridiculous for intelligent and well-trained bombers to leave behind such damaging evidence. Police believe that the van and its contents could have been set up in a bid to point to an Islamic connection.

The van was traced to Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant, who flew to Dubai on the day of the blasts. However, the van could have been stolen by terrorists. Police are investigating Memon's antecedents.

The Suspects

Who Could Be Responsible?

Rajiv Gandhi's assassination at Sriperumbudur: A portent? Rajiv Gandhi's assassination at Sriperumbudur: A portent?

So far, the Government seems to be leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to track down the bombers. By Sunday, March 14, it had already established contact with the intelligence agencies of various countries, including the FBI in the US, Israel's Mossad and Britain's Scotland Yard.

Interpol was contacted for help on the day of the bombings and a reply came within 24 hours containing a list of names of mercenaries who have been known to be hired to carry out such acts.

The list includes names of people of Lebanese, Pakistani, Egyptian and Sri Lankan origin. Interpol has also provided the photographs and the handwritings of these suspects.

These were flown into Bombay on the morning of March 14 where the photographs could be shown to the receptionists of the hotels at Sea Rock and Centaur where the suspects had stayed. The handwriting too will be compared for possible leads.

The initial reports compiled by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory establishes that the magnitude was a result of the highly explosive RDX material used.

Damaged cars at the Stock Exchange: Professional job Damaged cars at the Stock Exchange: Professional job

The report also establishes that 30 kg of RDX were used at the Air India and the Bombay Stock Exchange blast sites, two places which registered the maximum damage to life and property. At other sites, 10 kg of RDX was found to have been used.

RDX, available mainly in western countries, is a safe-to-carry, easy to transport, 'low explosive', plastic bomb. Besides, it can be easily smuggled through on national and international flights since it does not show up on X-rays or metal detectors.

The forensic team has also confirmed that the bombs were detonated by timer devices. RDX is also an expensive and difficult-to-attain explosive, two other reasons which fit the 'external hand' theory first floated by Home Minister S.B. Chavan.

Bombay's Police Commissioner A.S. Samra has already pointed out that the quantity of explosives would have cost no less than Rs 3 crore, an amount which only secret agencies can afford.

The Bombay Police is still trying to establish whether or not the cars in which the bombs were placed were stolen. If stolen, investigators will run into a dead-end.

Investigations have been given a boost with the discovery of a new Bajaj scooter whose registration plate points to Thane. It was first spotted standing in Naigaum, Dadar in Central Bombay on March 12 by a doctor who has a dispensary there.

At first he thought nothing of it but when he returned on March 14 to find it still standing, he alerted the police, who found it loaded with seven to eight explosives - a mixture of RDX with chemicals and PETN (Semtex) - which had been wired to the ignition key. It is being examined for fingerprints.

The investigations so far lie in the realm of speculation. What the agencies have started is the process of elimination. Soon after the blasts, the initial suspicion was that they were of a communal nature.

But an act of reprisal by Muslims against the forces of Hindutva makes no sense considering the choice of targets. Bombay's Muslims have never shown the kind of expertise and organisation which marked the March 12 bombings.

Similarly, if it was the Hindutva forces, the choice of targets was equally mix senseless. There are any number of sensitive, densely-populated areas which would have provoked an immediate communal backlash and made the point more forcefully.

Terrorists in Punjab are on the run now. Nor do they have the kind of organisation and support in Bombay as they did in Delhi in the wake of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. They do, however, have the international support for financing such an operation.

But, once again, it would make no sense for them to target Bombay and financial symbols, when their strategy so far has been to attack the symbols and representatives of the Government. Moreover, Sikh separatist groups claim immediate responsibility for any such acts. In this case, no one has come forward yet.

The other obvious terrorist groups are the various Kashmir-based militant organisations. So far, however, they have not operated outside Kashmir. Moreover, they are even quicker off the mark than their counterparts in Punjab to claim responsibility.

On the basis of pure circumstantial evidence, the LTTE is one separatist group which has the expertise, finance, foreign contacts and motivation required to pull off such a devastating attack.

It has access to car bombs and high explosives as in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, with RDX concealed in a belt pouch. They even have a powerful motive, the recent killing of Kittu, one of their top military leaders, during a combined operation by the Coast Guard and the Indian Navy off the coast of Tamil Nadu.

The LTTE had publicly vowed to extract revenge. Besides, LTTE chief V. Pirabhakaran has been declared a fugitive by the Indian Government and the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is about to be taken up in court.

But several factors undermine that theory. For one, they have generally not been known to operate outside Tamil Nadu and neighbouring states. Also, Bombay is certainly not a city where they are well organised. And why would they choose financial and commercial, targets?

Currently, they have their hands full fighting the Sri Lankan security forces and, apart from the Kittu incident, they have little reason to suddenly launch an all-out war against India. In any event, the organisation is virtually crippled in Tamil Nadu, its former stronghold and operating base.

Thus, by a process of elimination, the needle of suspicion has started pointing unwaveringly at the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's aggressive external intelligence operations wing. Top intelligence and police officials are unanimous in suspecting the ISI.

The foundation for their suspicion is the strong roots that the ISI has been able to cultivate among the Muslim (Kashmir) and Sikh militant groups operating in India. Indian intelligence organisations have been, for some time, talking about the K2 factor. K2 is a gameplan, believed to have been launched by the ISI, under which it was trying to unite Sikh and Muslim militants.

The ISI, it is now being conjectured, could well have roped in the support of aggrieved Bombay Muslims. The serial blasts have been interpreted as a reprisal by Muslim fundamentalist organisations and the ISI in reply to the violence against Muslims in the recent riots in the country.

Home Ministry records accuse the ISI of using Indian Muslim fundamentalist organisations, mainly the Jamait-e-Islami, to promote terrorism in India. Of late, according to intelligence sources, the ISI has being trying to forge links between the Kashmir and Punjab militants for coordinated operations.

A huge consignment of AK-47 rifles and explosives recovered in Ahmedabad a few months ago was traced to the Kashmiri militants and was meant for gangs in the Muslim-dominated areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The consignment was seized after the interrogation of an ISI trained militant, Manjit Singh Lalli, who had arrived in Bombay under an assumed name, Iqbal Ahmad, and with a Pakistani passport.

The ISI is also believed to have sent groups of saboteurs with Pakistani passports to India. Lalli, under interrogation, had spoken about an ISI conspiracy to hit at vital installations including an atomic plant in India.

For quite some time, the sea route along the Gujarat coast has become the main conduit for the smuggling of weapons from Pakistan. And Pakistan is the only country which would choose targets deliberately intended to cripple India's economic progress.

Further, the car-bomb technique has been used in Sindh and Karachi. The ISI, Indian agencies believe, could be retaliating against the recent blasts in Sindh, which Pakistan claims was the handiwork of Indian agencies.

The motive and timing being ascribed is that militancy was ebbing in Punjab and fresh initiatives were being contemplated in Kashmir. The related conjecture is that it suits Pakistan to deepen the communal divide following the demolition of the Babri Masjid and while Bombay's communal wounds are still fresh. Intelligence reports had also pointed to an increase in ISI activity in Bombay.

The former governor, C. Subramaniam, in fact, had in a statement once said that Pakistan was moving arms into Bombay from Karachi. But all these conjectures will, by definition, remain purely tentative until the Government acquires conclusive evidence.

The Future

Era Of Fear And Paranoia

All that can be done to prevent car bombing is tighten up security All that can be done to prevent car bombing is tighten up security

Faced with the lack of hard evidence, the ISI theory is the most convenient one for the Indian Government to float. It not only deflects attention from the magnitude of the act and its consequences but provides the Government with a rallying point.

If the theory gains ground, as media reports suggest, the country - and opposition parties - will tend to converge behind the Narasimha Rao Government. Until the investigations prove otherwise, the Pakistan hand will clearly prove a handy political tool.

The obvious question, in the light of the havoc wreaked in Bombay, is whether there was a massive security failure. Such a well-planned and elaborate operation involving the stealing or buying of at least seven vehicles, smuggling in approximately 40 kg of high explosives, rehearsals, local recruitments, should have produced some hint of impending trouble.

Some Bombay Police officials insist that an alert was sounded. "During the last month we had given a number of alerts that Pakistan's ISI was trying to send in arms and trying to create trouble," says a senior CID official, adding; "We had alerted the Coastguard and Customs about this.

After the alerts, container checks have been going on at sea ports. All containers on ships were checked - it took a month to do this." The officials point out that in the last year, they received specific messages to check three ships, coming in from Holland, Germany and Karachi respectively which was the last to dock in mid-January.

Narasimha Rao and Sharad Pawar at the Stock Exchange after the blast: Political vulnerability Narasimha Rao and Sharad Pawar at the Stock Exchange after the blast: Political vulnerability

However, Police Commissioner A.S. Samra stated in a high level meeting with Sharad Pawar and Home Minister Chavan that they had no prior information of the impending blasts.

There were no intelligence reports which even suggested that terrorists were planning anything of such a magnitude. The only security alert was the usual one issued in the month of Ramzan, taken more seriously this time because of the recent riots in Bombay.

But even that proved ineffective in the face of the serial bombs. As Samra said, the blasts were not a sign of a police intelligence failure but evidence that the operation was so well-planned and executed.

Though belated security measures - like the screening of courier packets and tightened security at airports - have been enforced, the fear is that March 12 is not the end of the terror.

Because no organisation has claimed responsibility, the identity and motive of the terrorists has been shrouded in uncertainty and foreboding. There are even theories in some intelligence and diplomatic quarters that suggest the implication of West Asian countries, angered at what they see as a pogrom against Indian Muslims.

Even so, the implications of the serial bombings are chilling for the country and its security agencies. If such expertise and type of explosives have arrived in India, there is virtually no defence against them.

"A plastic explosive can take the most innocuous shape and it is virtually impossible to detect a well-disguised time device," says a top police officer. Most Indian cities are soft targets. The borders are porous, and the grievances that breed the support network for bombers, are multiplying.

More frightening is the fact that car bombs are probably the most horrific weapon in the terrorist's arsenal. Its profusion and banality is its best camouflage. No nation in the world, even advanced countries with terrorist problems, have been able to counter the use of car bombs effectively.

The IRA has used them with virtual impunity on the streets of London and the one in New York earlier this month shattered American confidence. In Colombo, where car bombs have caused such devastation, security measures include the screening of cars entering public places such as shopping centres, government buildings and hotels.

Portable mirrors are passed under the cars to look for hidden devices while luggage compartments are physically examined. No cars are allowed to park in the porch area, the opposite of what happens in most Indian hotels.

The Bombay bombings reveal a definite pattern, the choice of high-profile, crowded commercial targets and monuments to India's economic strength like the BSE and five-star hotels where a majority of tourists stay or even Air India, the best-known international symbol of the country.

If the strategy is to scare away foreign investors and undermine India's economy and its international image, the terrorists have partly succeeded. As industrialist Aditya Birla says: "Industry certainly cannot thrive in a situation of uncertainty and lawlessness."

But barely days after the blasts, Bombay was limping back to near-normalcy and frenetic efforts were underway to get the BSE operative as soon as possible.

The Government's resolve appeared equally resilient and the offers of help from major western countries seemed to indicate that the economic setback may not be as disastrous as originally feared.

But that could only be an invitation for yet more terrorist attacks. Police officials admit that until some solid clues emerge - or luck favours them, as was the case in the New York bombing - there is little they can do except tighten up security in obvious areas.

Police officials suggest a two-pronged strategy to deal with the threat. One, breaking the organisational base of the terrorist outfits.

Two, strengthening ground-level security. "The need is to develop a ground-level highly-expert intelligence network which can sensitise the security agencies about such terrorist attacks,'' says a high-level intelligence operative.

That, unfortunately, is easier said than done. Guarding against such acts of terrorism will require a superhuman effort and a huge financial outlay, apart from the political resolve required. With Chavan and Pilot at loggerheads and Narasimha Rao under growing political pressure from the BJP as well as dissidents within his own party, the omens are not exactly favourable.

The good news is that, for the moment at least, there seems to be a move to sink political differences in the face of what is a national crisis. Says BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi: "The Bombay blasts are not a Hindu-Muslim problem; it is a national issue."

Echoes CPI(M) leader in the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee: "We should jointly try to stop India from becoming a playground for international terrorism." Even Congress(I) dissidents like Natwar Singh, K.N. Singh, B.P. Maurya and Sheila Dixit have issued a joint statement stating that "each one of us should unitedly help to strengthen the hands of the Maharashtra and the Central Governments".

But how long such spirit will last is anybody's guess. The BJP is already planning to demand that the Centre issue a statement about the 'failure' of intelligence agencies when Parliament reopens. It could also go to the extent of demanding the Government's resignation. Says party Vice-President K.R. Malkani: "It is a weak government incapable of handling a Bombay-type situation. It must go."

Moreover, if a Pakistan involvement is detected, the BJP will step up its campaign to destabilise the Government and push for retaliation, even an armed conflict. High-level military sources say that the country is in no position to indulge in an armed confrontation with Pakistan at this stage.

The resource crunch may have affected both sides but the Indian Army's hardware and strategic planning has been hit the hardest. With Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, a military adventure could prove costly.

Even more so given the economic instability introduced by the Bombay bombings, however temporary it may prove. That, coupled with the looming threat of political instability, could prove to be more destructive than the bombs which, for one fiery day, turned Bombay into Beirut.

- Dilip Bobb with Harinder Baweja, Sudeep Chakravarti, Arun Katiyar, Lekha Rattanani, Daksesh Parikh and Rahul Pathak