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

Never before in the history of modern India had terror struck at this scale and with such ferocity and meticulous planning. Fortunately for the country, the case was cracked by the Mumbai Police the same day with the chance discovery of a Maruti van with the number MFC-1972 near a Siemens factory in Worli. The vehicle lay abandoned and unclaimed. Seven AK-56 rifles, four hand grenades, fourteen
magazines of AK-56 and one timer pencil were seized from the van.

The duplicate registration book of the Maruti van found in its glove compartment showed its owner as one Rubina Memon, wife of Suleman Memon, a resident of Al-Hussaini building in Mahim, Bombay. Searches conducted by the police at the premises found traces of RDX, a most lethal explosive material, in the garage, lift and flats belonging to the family of one Ibrahim Razaq Memon a.k.a, Tiger Memon, a notorious and hot-headed silver and gold smuggler of Bombay. The gangster from Mahim had apparently acquired Tiger as his moniker after an incident—part of underworld folklore and of apocryphal origin—remembered by his contemporaries till day. It seems a Customs officer seized a consignment of silver smuggled by Ibrahim Razaq Memon and had the temerity to purloin a part of it. Memon beat up the Customs officer publicly and recovered the stolen slabs. Thereafter, out of ‘reverence’ and awe, his colleagues began to call him Tiger.

On another occasion, as the story goes, his brother Essa, a timid youngster, was beaten up by goons residing in their neighbourhood. The assault was a fall-out of Essa objecting to being splattered with mud from a roadside puddle by a vehicle driven by one of the goons. This happened barely fifty metres away from the Mahim police station. The cops took both Essa and the local louts to the police station. Tiger reached the cop-house on learning of the incident in no time and thrashed the assailants in the presence of policemen on duty. He left the precincts taking Essa with him without the police saying a word.

To be continued...