The residents of Malkani Mahal building opposite Century Bazar feel somewhat vindicated by Tuesday's verdict, which se als the fate of Yakub Memon.The structure was reduced to ruins after a time bomb placed under a peepal tree exploded on March 12, 1993.
The families were displaced for almost two years and none of them were even paid the Rs 5 lakh compensation promised by incumbent chief minister Sharad Pawar because the “file went missing“.
Vinduri Mirchandani, who turned 100 last April, is likely the oldest survivor of the 1993 serial blasts. She has vivid memories of glass shards piercing her cheeks and her head when her firstfloor flat was ripped apart. Reacting to the SC judgment, she said, “Achha hua.“
“Der aayat durust aayat (Better late than never),“ said her daughter Maya, a former income-tax employee. “My mother was 78 at the time, and I recall scooping up ice in my dupatta and holding it to her face when the glass pieces were removed at KEM Hospital. She was feeling cold so we had to cut her blood-soaked clothes,“ she added.
The wall of the Mirchandanis's apartment crashed into their neighbour's house, killing Ram Advani, who was sleeping in the flat. “The government gave us a grand largesse of Rs 5,000 with which we could not even build a bathroom. For us, 1993 brought the terrors of a second Partition which I saw as an eight-year-old. On humanitarian grounds, I may not wish to see the accused hang.But when I recall our helplessness and distress, I feel the families of these criminals should also taste the fruits of their misdeeds,“ Maya says.
Her neighbour Kamla Malkani is “okay , not happy“ that Yakub will hang. “Only one person has been convicted after 22 years. The earlier judge let off other perpetrators because they were `feeble and ailing'. What kind of justice is that? Why have successive governments failed to bring back the absconding accused led by Dawood Ibrahim? I feel they are doing it to protect their own skin, not him,“ she said.
Malkani ran a beauty parlour in her second-floor apartment. Her sister and two girls who worked at the parlour suffered severe injuries in the blast; another employee who was at the bus stop was killed.
A 19-year-old resident had just returned home after her college exam when the explosion occurred. “My brother lost his eyesight for a while and we were displaced for two years. We received Rs 5,000 in compensation. I am so disillusioned by the system that I feel nothing matters,“ she told TOI on Tuesday.
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