Tiger, Yakub and Ayub: Meet the Memons accused of orchestrating 1993 Mumbai blasts

Soon after the Supreme Court rejected 1993 Mumbai blasts accused Yakub Memon’s mercy plea, in the best tradition of invasive Indian journalism, reporters flocked to his wife seeking to know how she felt about the idea of her husband being hanged to death. “It feels like a bad dream…,” Rahina Memon told them. Rahina’s shock at the verdict, it seems, was compounded by her belief that Yakub was paying for the sins of others. She told The Times of India, “Just for society you put one brother behind bars for 14 years and then condemn him to death for his brother’s sins. Yakub is being hanged because of the Memon tag. Is surname ne unko tabah kar diya (this surname has destroyed him).’’ Yakub, according to reports, believed that the entire Memon family shouldn’t have to bear the burden of Tiger’s crimes. The latter had allegedly arranged for the family to reside permanently in Pakistan, while he moved to UAE. However, Yakub, a chartered accountant and the most educated in the Memon family, decided to surrender to Indian authorities. Tiger had warned Yakub that it wasn’t a good idea. “Tum, mahatma banne mat ja.. surrender mat kar (don’t try to be a Mahatma, don’t surrender),” were the exact words, according to a 2007 The Times of India report. [caption id=“attachment_2357164” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Yakub Memon and Tiger Memon.[/caption] Nevertheless, Yakub returned to India in 1994. While some say he surrendered, others say that the Central Bureau of Investigation was tipped off about their arrival, and they were consequently arrested. Yakub was not the only one who was tried after the arrest of the Memons in 1994. Eight others of the Memon family, excluding Yakub and Tiger, were also tried by the Indian courts. This included Yakub’s father Abdul Razzak, his mother Hanifa Memon. his wife Rahina. Yakub’s brothers Suleiman, Ayub, Yusuf and Essa also faced trial and probe. Suleiman’s wife Rubina too was tried. According to an article in the Outlook, while Essa and Yusuf are serving life terms in the Aurangabad Jail, Suleiman and his wife were released, along with Rahina, Hanifa and Abdul. Ayub is believed to be living with Tiger in UAE. Outlook describes Abdul Razzak Memon as a “an avid cricket buff”. Abdul played for the Mumbai league and earned the name “Tiger” after Nawab Pataudi. Though Tiger’s (named Mushtaq by his parents) ascent in the underworld turned the fortunes of the Memon family around, they lived in a small tenement in south Mumbai as children. A Frontline report from 2007, traces the Memon family’s roots back to a one-room accommodation near Mohammad Ali Road in south Mumbai. Abdul and Hanifa raised their six sons in there. Shekhar Gupta, M Rahman and Rahul Pathak, reporting for India Today in 1993, had called the probe launched to trace the Memons as the “Mother of all Investigations”. They had written: “The search for Bombay’s 12-member Memon family, which escaped to Dubai on an Emirates flight between March 1 and 12, directly involves nearly 600 investigators, top officials of all the intelligence agencies, the Home, Defence and External Affairs Ministries and nearly a dozen embassies, besides Interpol and terrorism experts in Washington, D.C., and London.” The India Today article notes how Abdul didn’t turn out to be a particularly skillful businessman, though he belonged to a community of entrepreneurs. However, his sons struck out and tried to better their father’s luck. The same article points out that his eldest son started working in the Income Tax department but later quit and started working in Saudi Arabia. Tiger, as we know, plunged headlong into the world of crime. Tiger started working as a clerk in Byculla. However, his career path took a radical turn after he came in touch with underworld dons. Meanwhile, Yakub went on to complete his M Com and then his chartered accountancy course. Anupama Katakam wrote in Frontline, “The third son, Yakub Memon, was the brightest in the family. Educated in an English medium school and college, Yakub became a chartered accountant and ran several businesses. His success helped the family buy several apartments in the Al-Hussaini building in Mahim. Apparently, while Tiger took the illegitimate route to make money, Yakub preferred the straight road. Unfortunately for him, his loyalty to the family made him get into hawala transactions on behalf of his brother. Dubious monetary transactions found in his various bank accounts led investigators to believe that he financed the bomb blasts operation.” Chetan Mehta, who started a chartered accountancy firm with Yakub Memon, had told India Today after the blasts that he couldn’t believe that someone like Yakub could be involved in a terror plot. “Mehta still remembers him as a gentle person and finds it difficult to believe he could be involved in the bombings,” the article states. Yakub’s wife Rahina insists that most of the family members didn’t have a clue about the Mumbai blasts. She told The Times of India that the family left for Dubai a couple of days before the blast because Tiger and Ayub insisted they spend Eid together in Dubai. “My parents-in-law had already gone on March 10, along with my brothers-in-law. Yakub got a call from Ayub in Dubai. He insisted that we celebrate Eid over there so we went. And we had been going to Dubai all the time. It was nothing new.” Hussain Zaidi, who reported extensively on the Mumbai blasts and later wrote Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, echoes Rahina’s shock when he emphasis that Yakub was indeed innocent. Zaidi insists that Yakub made it possible for the Indian agencies to arrest him, where as, he could have easily absconded had he wanted to. He did it, according to Zaidi, because he was innocent like many other members of his family. “His only crime was that he Tiger’s brother. His optimism stemmed from the fact that he had amassed and collected vast amount of material on the blasts, including on his own brother. He had damning evidence against ISI agent Taufiq Jaliawala and several other Pakistani officials. Risking his and his family’s lives, Yaqub had videographed Jaliawala’s bungalow, despite the place being under constant ISI surveillance,” Zaidi wrote for the Mumbai Mirror.