BOMbai - Journey of a city and religions

A Story by Aniil P

Its a short story for a writing contest online, wherein a small para was given by the organizers and it had to be embedded in a fictional write up of upto 2500 words.

Chapter I

The lazy Sunday morning was like any other in the financial capital. Early risers were catching up on the telecast of the two most popular TV series at the time. Both of them depicting the life and works of two of the most popular characters of Hindu mythology �" Lord Krishna and Lord Rama. The latter, without His direct involvement, was about to change the lives of many in this cosmopolitan city. Merely thousand miles away, this Sunday morning of 06-Dec-1992 was anything but lazy.

Ayodhya, one of the most important cities in Indian mythology, was witnessing 150,000 people working to “correct” a recent mistake made by a former emperor, 465 years earlier. What they did in a few hours on that fateful day, would remain etched in the history of our country for centuries to come. Prolonged debates, discussions and communal violence on the Ramajanmabhoomi having been razed to make way for a grand mosque by Babur in 1527, culminated into this event which tore apart the social fabric of our otherwise peaceful and secular country.

As the news of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya spread through the country, metros like Bombay started witnessing bloody communal riots from the following morning itself. Its survivors still recoil in horror over the events of those 45 days. But anyone who thought this nightmare had come to an end, was in for a rude shock.

Notwithstanding the political involvement, these riots were a backlash from the Muslims in wake of the events in Ayodhya. An equally violent response from the Hindus resulted into the bloodiest communal riots of Bombay, which resulted in more casualties for Muslims as they were obviously outnumbered. Unfortunately, the notorious D-Company, on a political refuge in Dubai, used this as a pretext to trigger 13 serial blasts on 13-Mar-1993 in the island city.

Rigorous investigations for 20 years resulted in the sentencing of a Yakub Memon, one of the masterminds of the blasts and a brother of a close aide of D-Company, to be hanged till death. This sentence was carried out in July 2015, merely 22 years after the Black Friday, post countless appeals, mercy pleas to the various courts and even to the President of India being rejected. The Courts had observed Yakub Memon’s role in the blasts being pivotal as he channeled the most important ingredient �" money, through hawala transactions from Dubai to Mumbai. His fleeing the city with his family two days before the blasts, also proved his involvement.

Since some people, including most of our country’s elite media houses, were never blessed with an elixir called common sense, Yakub’s hanging was reported in a lopsided way portraying him as a martyr rather than a terrorist who betrayed his motherland. This led to a resumption of the deadly cycle of revenge by the terrorist groups across the border.

Only this time they didn’t intend to use Mumbaiites, as the city came to be called in the last few years, but Pakistani locals to avenge the killing of a martyr, who was murdered for supporting his community by the enemy nation.

Chapter II

Pakistan was the worst indirect casualty of the 9/11 attacks. Internal rifts over allowing US to use its air strips and border to attack Afghanistan and Iraq in their war on terror, and numerous terrorist attacks by the Afghan terrorists who had fled to Pakistan when their country was attacked led to a huge economic downturn resulting in general joblessness and negativity in the country. A perfect breeding ground for terrorist groups to recruit misguided youth like Ila.

In her early twenties, Ila first lost her parents in a deadly bomb blast in a busy Karachi market, and then her brother in a barbaric Talibani attack on a school where 150 young Pakistanis were butchered. This led to tipping of the scales in her taking up a recent ‘job offer’ to avenge her family’s untimely demise. The Lashkar group she joined, offered her all the information in this regard in exchange for her joining the Operation Moon-Star, wherein she was brainwashed for avenging the death of Allah’s angel, Yakub Memon, who was mercilessly killed by the Indian government for serving his community.

Operation Moon-Star was designed to yet again attack the lifeline of Mumbai, its local trains which ferry a record 7.6 million people daily, more than the entire population of Hong Kong. This was like no other attack witnessed till date. The low intensity plastic explosives were designed to take out only one, or at most, two people. The target would be the motor man and the guard, control centers at either end of local trains, in 4 trains on Central and Western lines, preferably during the morning rush hour. Post the detonations, there would be no way to control or stop the trains anywhere leading to a chaotic situation of people jumping off moving trains, collisions with other trains and manic panic all around which could result in thousands of deaths. For this, Ila and her companion would also have a separate 4 member team to hijack the Mumbai railways headquarters, which can remotely control trains in such an eventuality. This would ensure no one interferes with the Operation Moon-Star. Also, there would be local help from people working with the Mumbai railways to plant the explosives.

Since the operation required only plastic explosives and limited arms and ammunition, all the requirements would easily be fulfilled locally in Mumbai itself, hence the team reached Mumbai easily through official channels using aliases. Once in Mumbai, they coordinated with their respective contacts to execute operation Moon-Star.

Chapter III

Ahana’s traditional and religious Hindu family, was an epitome of the fact that brainwashing wasn’t limited to terrorist organizations. Constant pestering since her childhood that their religion was better than others, had kicked in the reverse psychology, wherein Ahana grew up never judging anyone based on their place of worship.

Sitting in a Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window, Ahana was admiring the dusky September skyline. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf. She had noticed some movement around her of a burkha clad woman, through the reflection in the café’s window but had chosen not to react as she saw a policeman entering the café. Immediately, that woman, who just slid something next to Ahana, dashed for the other door with the policeman in tow. Ahana saw the blood stained knife as she lifted her scarf, and almost dashed off to report this to the policeman. But as she wrongly anticipated a prejudiced reaction of the police against the burkha clad woman, she thought of chasing down the woman herself, who was already a fair distance away but not out of sight.

Meanwhile, a female constable had also caught up and frisked the burkha clad woman for any weapons because of her suspicious behavior, wherein nothing was found on her. Thereafter, the burkha clad woman started walking briskly in the other direction. Ahana, who had got rid of the knife in the meantime, started following her. She was led into a slum having very narrow paths with shanties on either side of it. She saw the burkha clad woman open a lock to get into a small dungeon like shanty. Since this meant the woman would be alone, Ahana decided to follow her in.

Chapter IV

Having removed the burkha immediately on entering the shanty, Ila flinched as she realized someone was entering her place. Her natural reaction was to go for the weapon in the closet nearby, but she froze as she noticed the girl from the café, she had tried to frame with the blood stained knife, walk in. She had used the knife to neutralize Waqar, who had helped her planting the explosives in the trains, so as to tie up a loose end. She dumped his body but before she could get rid of the knife, noticed an approaching police patrol van. She dashed for a Starbucks café close by and slid the knife next to a girl who seemed lost admiring the skyline. Or so she thought, until Ahana walked in to her shanty.

Chapter V

Initially, on Ahana’s questioning about the events in the café, Ila denied everything stating she is seeing her for the first time. When Ahana mentioned she has hidden the knife in a safe place and can always bring in the cops, Ila alleged she is bluffing like Indians usually do. On being referred to as Indian, Ahana realized Ila was certainly not one, and questioned her where she was from. Ila was getting impatient and thought of killing Ahana to end this entire situation. However, two dead bodies not very far from each other would attract a lot of attention, which had to be avoided until the execution of the Operation Moon-Star in a few hours. Thus, she told Ahana she is from Pakistan but lied about not having killed anyone and accidentally getting the blood stained knife just as the police patrol van came along. She alleged that since the Indian police wouldn’t have believed her story if she was caught with that knife, as she was a Muslim, she decided to dump it next to Ahana in the café seeing her Ganesha pendant and thus assuming she won’t be questioned much even if she is caught with the knife.

Ahana confessed to being taken aback on realizing it wasn’t only her family who did racial profiling based on religion, and regretted Ila was almost proving them right. However, she did agree that some people do still discriminate based on religion, but it’s not applicable to the entire country or its administration in general. She told Ila about how cordial Hindus and Muslims are with each other, even in times of the numerous terrorist attacks which the city has witnessed. However, she also said she didn’t expect anyone from a terrorist nation to understand this.

This flustered Ila to no end and she snapped back stating Pakistan is the biggest victim of terrorism, thanks in no small part to India and the super powerful western countries. She mentioned about losing her parents and her brother in two such barbaric attacks, hence now it was time for redemption. Even in this agitated state of mind, Ila regretted her last statement.

When she avoided answering Ahana’s questions on redemption, Ahana reached for her cell phone to alert the police about Ila and her intentions. Ila pounced on her, snatched her phone and banged it on the floor. She then calmly told Ahana that she can kill her right away, but somehow she doesn’t want to do it, so she will let her go in a few hours. Realizing what this meant for the city, Ahana refused to stay down and dashed for the door. Just then, Ila drew the Colt revolver from her closet where was standing all this while. Looking at a real gun for the first time, Ahana froze in her spot and Ila tied her down.

Thinking of her next move, Ahana remembered Ila mentioning about losing her family in terrorist attacks, so she questioned her on it. When Ila didn’t respond, she prodded again by alleging that may be the story wasn’t true at all and Ila just made it up to justify her actions. Ila retorted immediately stating that no one lies about their family, especially when they are no more.

After hearing Ila’s description of the attacks and her take on its perpetrators, Ahana first apologized to her for alleging earlier that she was making it up and then explained her in detail about various terrorist attacks which India and especially Mumbai has witnessed since independence. She told Ila how it has been proven beyond doubt, by confessions of caught terrorists in some instances, that all the attacks were perpetrated by Pakistan. She also mentioned how even the terrorists receive fair trials in our country, even when their crime has been captured on live television.

This didn’t affect Ila as she said she only cares about avenging her family’s misfortune. Ahana snapped back stating this attack would end up making more Ilas in the world and it would be unfair to punish an innocent bunch of people. Further, once she is caught post this operation, it would mean she will never find out the real culprits and that this latest attack might also push two countries into a war which would affect millions of people on both the sides.

Ahana’s last two statements hit pay dirt. Ila was also pleasantly surprised with how empathetic and kind Ahana had been to her despite she being so tenacious and self-centered all this while. The dawning realization that India was as adversely affected as Pakistan made her realize that the latter’s terrorism related issues were a case of shooting itself in the foot, whereas, India was a genuine victim of the jihadist movements globally. Not wanting to be remembered like her predecessors for bringing mayhem from a country which, only 68 years back, was an integral part of Hindustan, she untied Ahana immediately and they both proceeded to a police station.

Ila shared the chilling details of Operation Moon-Star including the 4 member hijack team. Ahana and the police were dumbstruck with the possible carnage this operation would cause. They shared the details with the IB(Intelligence Bureau) of RAW, India’s premier intelligence agency, who had already alerted Mumbai police about an impending terrorist attack based on increased chatter from their sources. But both the agencies had been unable to pinpoint the modus operandi of the attack. Thankfully, they had it now.

Epilogue

All the perpetrators were caught just in time. The trains in question were halted in the maintenance yard, and the bomb squad had managed to deactivate the explosives. The Railways HQ bound 4 member team was arrested outside its premises. The last member of the team was caught at Churchgate station, who was waiting there to witness the carnage first hand, but thankfully was disappointed.

Once it was ascertained the Operation Moon-Star was neutralized, Ila was formally arrested and the police ensured her and Ahana that she would receive a fair trial and a kind word from the Mumbai police, in light of her co-operation.

Just as Ahana was leaving, Ila confessed about killing Waqar and for lying about this earlier; she also apologized for trying to frame her for it. Ahana tempered her reaction, saying she realized she was right all this while in thinking a person becomes a terrorist not because of their religious inclination or their last name, but because of the circumstances and the people one encounters. Tearfully, Ila realized her mistake of her ways in thinking Indians and particularly the Hindus were against the Muslims. And that how hearsay can be devastatingly misleading.