Mumbai underground

TO THE RESCUE

IT was utter chaos as 25 convicts of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts arrived at the designated TADA court to surrender Thursday without identity proofs. While the judge and court staff were unsure how to proceed with the paper work,defence counsel Farhana Shah decided to stand witness to each convict. Her two-decade-long association with the case came in handy as she cited batch numbers of each one and sections proved against them. “After all,I have given 20 years of my practice to the Bombay bomb blast case,” Shah told the court.

Strange COINCIDENCE

A FEW concerned citizens who had filed RTI pleas seeking information on mobile phone towers atop certain buildings were stunned as a BMC ward office sent identical replies to two queries — survey sheets are in a “torn condition”. To a third application,it said the file of the plot was “presently not traceable in the office inspite of diligent search” and as soon as it was traced,the information would be furnished to the applicant. Citizen groups have now written to the municipal commissioner apprising him of the strange coincidence.

Sleight of handgun

A musket handgun adorns the desk of an inspector with a Mumbai Police special cell.

It has been positioned to catch the eye and most visitors end up asking about it.

The inspector first proudly tells the curious the handgun was presented by Queen of England to his ancestors and has been handed down generations.

But as a visitor is leaving after business,the cop spills the truth. “And that musket? I bought it for Rs 400 at Crawford Market,” he says nonchalantly.

NO break for mantris

THE Congress and NCP leadership has urged party ministers to skip long summer vacations and spend time in their constituencies to tackle drought. May and June are going to be a litmus test for the administration with the number of villages facing water scarcity crossing 7,000. NCP president Sharad Pawar has convened a meeting this week to assign his mantris drought work.