This photograph of a smiling policeman, displaying for the press a cache of captured goods, appeared in our national newspapers on April 14, 1993. The man in this photograph is Tikaram S Bhal, who at that time was the superintendent of police, Alibaug. The Times of India said that an “arms haul was reported from Walavati area of Srivardhan late yesterday evening. Twenty-five projectiles and seventeen pipe bombs and ammunition were recovered from the creek. Combing operations were going on…” In its greater zeal, Navshakti claimed that the materials recovered by the police were to be used to demolish Bal Thackeray’s home.

Walavati village is about 160 km south of Mumbai. The RDX used in the serial blasts the previous month had been brought to India by Tiger Memon’s men on those very shores. It took four days for the police to realise that the “projectiles” they had found were actually parts of textile machinery and were called bobbins or twist-blockers.

These are the opening paragraphs of my journalistic report published in the latest Time Out Mumbai. (The complete piece is available to online subscribers of the magazine.)

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