OPINION | The 1993 Mumbai Blasts: Anatomy of Black Friday

by Ashu Mann

It started just after 1 p.m. The first bomb tore through the basement parking lot of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Floors buckled. Glass blasted outward across the street. Workers on the upper floors did not immediately understand what had happened. Then, over the next two hours, twelve more bombs detonated across the city. By the time the final explosion subsided, 257 people were dead and more than 1,400 others were injured. India had never experienced anything like it.

The targets were not random. Each location was selected for visibility, heavy foot traffic, or economic importance. The Air India building at Nariman Point was struck. So was Zaveri Bazaar, one of the country’s busiest gold markets. Century Bazaar in Worli was bombed in the middle of an afternoon rush. A BEST bus near Sahar Airport was blown up with passengers still inside. The Sea Rock Hotel in Bandra, the Passport Office, and several other sites were also hit. Thirteen explosions, spread across some of the city’s most recognizable locations, took place within less than two hours.

Each device was an RDX-based bomb, either packed into a car or concealed inside a scooter parked near a building entrance. The timing between the blasts was deliberate. Emergency services responding to one attack were already stretched thin before the next explosion occurred. Ambulances, fire trucks, and police vehicles were pulled in multiple directions simultaneously. Hospitals quickly ran out of blood supplies. Morgues filled faster than staff could process the dead.

Investigators worked through the night and in the days that followed. Three names soon emerged as the principal figures behind the operation. Dawood Ibrahim, who had built one of South Asia’s most powerful criminal organizations and was operating from Dubai at the time, was identified as the man at the top. Tiger Memon, a local trader with deep ties to Mumbai’s smuggling networks, managed the ground operation. He organized the teams, identified the targets, and supervised the planting of the devices before leaving the country in the days following the attack.

Abu Salem was among the operatives who ensured the logistics worked. His role involved moving weapons and explosives through the network after they arrived in India. He also disappeared after March 12.

The explosives did not originate inside India. RDX was smuggled in by sea, transported along Maharashtra’s coastline through routes already used for other contraband. Forged identity documents allowed operatives to travel and move materials without attracting scrutiny. Some individuals involved had traveled abroad in the months before the blasts to receive weapons training before returning to participate in the attack.

The operation revealed a level of planning that India’s security forces had not previously encountered in an urban environment. Targets had been carefully surveyed. Movement routes were tested in advance. The network kept operational teams separate so that no individual knew more than the specific task assigned to them. Financing, logistics, weapons handling, and execution were compartmentalized.

What March 12, 1993 demonstrated was that India’s cities could be treated as strategic targets by an organization with sufficient money, connections, and coordination. At the time, the country’s security establishment had no framework prepared for that reality. Building one would take years.

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About the Author

Ashu Mann is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. He was awarded the Vice Chief of the Army Staff Commendation card on Army Day 2025. He is pursuing a PhD from Amity University, Noida, in Defence and Strategic Studies. His research focuses include the India-China territorial dispute, great power rivalry, and Chinese foreign policy.