Cop who named Dawood in 1993 Mumbai bombings case recounts> How ‘a seaman with worn-out slipper & torn pants’ led police to a terror plot

“That man would turn out to be key to the case,” says Vaghela, who later became the complainant in the July 15, 1993 FIR that named Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar for the first time in connection with the Mumbai bombings.

While he keeps the identity of the COFEPOSA informant confidential, he mentions another key person from Bedi in Jamnagar, whom he remembers simply as ‘Gani’—who was picked up during combing.

“Belonging to the Vagher community of Kutch, Gani was a resident of Bedi. We picked him up for questioning. I distinctly recall Gani wearing a blue slipper on one foot and a red worn-out slipper on the other. His pants were torn, but he had set out to buy a dhow (wooden sailing boat). Disguised as a Pathan, I went with my head constable to learn more about him.”

“He (Gani) kept saying something about a boat carrying ‘dangerous explosives’… how they were promised Rs 10,000 per sortie but weren’t given a penny. We decided to question him. During an intense round of questioning, he suddenly told us: Please spare me, I will give you information about ladoo, which is a code word used for bombs,” says Vaghela, describing how the Jamnagar district police stumbled upon the alleged conspiracy to bomb Mumbai.

Vaghela then took his boss, then superintendent of police Pramod Kumar Jha, a 1986 batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre, into confidence. Jha, who led the investigation into this case, passed away in 2008.

“My FIR was the first in the country to name Dawood Ibrahim in the Mumbai bombings case,” says Vaghela, who retired from service 17 years ago.

According to the case, at least three boats owned by Dawood aide Mohammad Dossa landed at different destinations in India carrying arms and ammunition to avenge the Babri Masjid demolition and the subsequent communal riots. A series of bombings hit Mumbai on March 12, 1993.

According to Vaghela’s FIR at the B division police station of Jamnagar, a boat—Sada-al-Bahar —landed on the Gosabara coast around February 10, 1993, from where arms and explosives were loaded onto trucks, which were sent to Mumbai with the help of silver smugglers.

As per the FIR, Sada-al-Bahar was loaded with the contraband by the Pakistan Marine Security Agency and, mid-sea, it offloaded some of its consignment on two other motorboats—Bismillah and Marwah. While Bismillah is presumed to have sailed towards Raigad in Maharashtra, Marwah sailed further southward and Sada-al-Bahar landed at Gosabara in Porbandar.

According to former IPS officer BS Jebaliya, who took over the investigation after Jha’s demise, the case was initially built on “oral evidence,” but police later found material evidence such as hand grenades from Surat, and more.

The ‘Gosabara RDX landing case’, one of Gujarat’s most controversial cases, concluded Monday when a Jamnagar court sentenced 12 accused. The trial ran for over three decades, with some of Gujarat’s top IPS and IAS officers testifying as witnesses. Resting largely on confessions and witness statements, the case’s prime witness was Natubhai Ravchabhai Patel, who confessed to witnessing “the transfer of arms and ammunition from Sada-al-Bahar and Bismillah”. The other important witness, now deceased, was Usmanghani Noormohammad, who was described as a “close associate” of Dawood Ibrahim and who attended the Dubai meeting to discuss “revenge” for the Babri Masjid demolitions.

According to the testimonies recorded in the judgment, the boat carried 125 jute bags of “powder”, 45 jute bags of pistols, revolvers, etc., and 40-50 wooden boxes.

A top police officer associated with the investigation identified three men from Kutch—Haroon Aadam Sandhar, Osman Umar Kureja and Mamad Alimamad Vada—as “smugglers” who worked for Dawood aide Mohammad Dossa and brought the contraband explosive in the boats.

Two more FIRs were lodged in connection with the same conspiracy—at Madhavpur police station of Porbandar in 1994, under whose jurisdiction was Gosabara, and in Umargam in Valsad, another coastal district. According to defence advocate Salim Jokhia, all the accused in the Porbandar case have been acquitted.

The case saw a critical turn in 2004, when Porbandar resident Umarmiyan Bukhari alias Mammumiyan Panjumiyan, the “landing agent” for Dawood who had allegedly received the consignment sent by Dossa, was extradited from Abu Dhabi and brought to Gujarat. With the help of Panjumiyan and his brother Dadli, who is also an accused, the police claimed to have recovered one AK-47 rifle and live cartridges of AK rifles found at a place “from Madhavpur to Mangrol”.

According to Vaghela, “We found some AK-47 rifles brought on this vessel dumped in a well in Jharaniya, Madhya Pradesh.”

Key witnesses who testified

IAS officers

Girishchandra Murmu (retd)

Sanjay Prasad (retd)

T Natarajan

IPS officers

PP Pandey

Geetha Johri

PC Pandey

AJ Bhargava

RJ Benjamin

BS Jebaliya

Manoj Sasidhar

Satishchandra Verma