"Return of the Memons- A Pyrrhic Victory" continues...

He also promised to explain everything once Yaqub reached Karachi. Meanwhile, Yaqub had heard the news that Tiger and his entire family had been linked to the blasts and declared absconding accused.

When the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight on 17th of March landed at Karachi, the
Memons were received by ISI operatives and escorted out of the airport without any immigration formalities. Tiger was waiting outside in a Pajero. Armed personnel in plain clothes stood around him. The family was driven to a bungalow called Qasr-e-Rayaz. Yaqub later came to know that the bungalow belonged to Taufiq Jalianwala, Tiger’s smuggling partner based in Karachi. The
Memons were kept under constant surveillance by armed guards and allowed to leave the bungalow only for prayers at a nearby mosque. They stayed in the bungalow for about a week after which they were shifted to another bungalow at 25-Roofi Cottage, Gulshan e Iqbal, Karachi. There too they were under constant watch.

Most of the Memons were quite uncomfortable with their life in Karachi, as disclosed by Yaqub. Tiger’s father Abdul Razaq, like other adults in the family, was by then convinced that it was Tiger who had perpetrated the blasts in Bombay in cahoots with the ISI and Taufiq Jalianwala. In a fit of rage one day, as per Yaqub’s statement, he beat up Tiger in the presence of other family members.

In April, 1993, they were given passports and identity papers in fictitious names. Being forced to assume fake identities added to their distress and discomfiture. Then one day they learnt that they were being taken to Bangkok. Under coercion by their ‘protectors’—the ISI—they had to leave Karachi for Bangkok on April 16 & 17, in two groups. Two officials, who had earlier received them at Karachi airport, accompanied them. At Bangkok airport they were again received by, as guessed by Yaqub, officials from the Pakistan Embassy in Bangkok, who presumably, were ISI operatives seconded to the Embassy.

To be continued...