https://www.opindia.com/2022/07/ahmedabad-serial-blasts-conviction-quran-constitution-indian-mujahideen/
The then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi with the then PM Dr Manmohan Singh at the site of 2008 Ahmedabad blasts (image courtesy: thetatva.in)
It was a Saturday evening and my parents were visiting some relatives somewhere in Shahibaug area of Ahmedabad. Around 7 PM I got a call from my colleague, a place where I was interning as a part of my Chartered Accountancy course, asking me if I am alright and safe at home. I wondered what happened. I was informed there were serial bomb blasts in the city and many of them took place on the route our team was taking for a client’s office where we were doing the audit of the annual accounts.
I switched on the tv and the visuals were of the crossroads we were passing by every day for the past 2 months. The visuals then moved to Civil Hospital where one more blast took place. The terrorists had targeted two hospitals near the blast site so that when the injured are brought in for first aid, more people can be killed. Civil Hospital is where my parents were visiting our relative. I made panic calls but the network was jammed immediately and no calls would get through. I did not know what to do.
A few hours later, my parents reached home and I cried out of relief.
The three of us watched tv in stunned silence that evening. In a city that has a history of communal violence and that had witnessed the 2002 Godhra carnage and subsequent riots just a few years prior, we expected the worst. The police and state administration, however, swung into action and made sure peace prevails.
I got a call from my boss informing me that I am being taken off the audit team. I was the only girl in the team in the godforsaken industrial area and he didn’t want my safety concern as additional work. He said he would join us for two days where I would hand over my work. On Monday, we stayed back till 2 AM so that I did not have to go there the next day. The client had arranged for our conveyance from our office on Ashram Road to Vatva.
At 2:30 AM when we left for Ashram Road, it had started drizzling. There were 8 of us in the cab including the driver. We were stopped by police six times on our way back. Police eyeing a bunch of people with backpacks and laptops suspiciously along with a lone woman in the group. At one place, a woman police officer was called in to check my bag and ask me for details on where we are coming from and where we were going. I had to switch on the laptop to show her how it is not going to blow up I guess.
It was terrifying.
Years later, I spoke to one of the survivors. The young man I talked to was 8 years old when he lost his father and elder brother.
On 26 July 2008, 8-year-old Yash Vyas with his 10-11-year-old brother Rohan and father, Dushyant Vyas, stepped out of the home to learn how to cycle. They rode the cycle for about 2-3 hours. At around 7:30-7:45 PM, someone called up his father and asked him to wait at the Civil Hospital. Yash doesn’t know the exact details, but his father who worked at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital’s cancer department’s laboratory waited.
10 minutes later, an ambulance rolled in. His father asked his two sons to wait for him with the cycle and went to check in the ambulance. And there was another blast. The blast was so powerful it was heard over a radius of 2 km from the spot. Rohan was burnt beyond recognition. Yash was injured. He then saw his father being taken on the stretcher at 8:30 PM. That was the last time he saw him. He fell unconscious. His father, severely injured, bled to death.
56 people had died in the bomb blasts.
The day I spoke to Yash, Safdar Nagori, one of the convicts in the blast, had said how he would choose Quran over Constitution. Terrorism may not have any religion, but this terrorist did kill in the name of his religion. A resident of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, 54-years-old Nagori was associated with the banned Islamic terrorist organization Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). After SIMI was banned, reports suggest, many of the members joined the ranks of PFI (Popular Front of India). PFI members are now getting caught running terror modules and planning Ghazwa-e-Hind and turning India into an Islamic caliphate. Just another religion-less terror group.
On 26th July 2008 at 6:41 in the evening, several news agencies received a 14-page e-mail five minutes before the explosions with the subject line: “Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat”. It was clear enough that the terrorists were referring to the Gujarat riots of 2002 which took place after the Godhra carnage. This email was sent by Indian Mujahidin. The email further said, “In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!” By mentioning Allah, it was also clear that Islam is the inspiration of these terror attacks.
The terrorists mocked the Indian security systems reminding the then CM of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy R. R. Patil of the bomb blasts that took place in the local trains of Mumbai on 11th July 2006. The email said “We wonder at your memory. Have you forgotten the evening of 11 July 2006 so quickly and so easily?”