'No closure till masterminds of Black Friday are punished'

MUMBAI: The victims of 1993 spent sleepless hours through the intervening night of Wednesday-Thursday before sunrise brought news of Yakub Memon's hanging. Slight satisfaction apart, they will achieve closure only after masterminds Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon meet a similar fate.
For 22 years, businessman Girish Mehta, 65, involuntarily wakes up at night to open a little hoard containing memorabilia of his 12-year-old son.He caresses a scruffy brown necktie the child wore to class, a school brochure that has an obituary to the boy, and a set of coloured drawings that are now laminated lest they fade.
Tejas Mehta, a Class VI student of Sacred Heart School in Worli, was killed when a bomb exploded on a BEST bus near Century Bazar. His grieving father says, "Don't unending mercy pleas by convicts undermine the authority of the President and the Supreme Court? Let alone scrap the death penalty, the government should mandate execution for terror crimes. My son would have been 34 today, my support in old age."
Tejas, a child with an impish smile, was a fine cricketer who trained at Shivaji Park under Ramakant Achrekar, the %man who coached Sachin Tendulkar. "Achrekar Sir often said to me 'Girishbhai, your son is a promising fast bowler like Kapil Dev. He will make it to the Indian team'," says Mehta. This is no empty pride, Tejas was selected for the under-16 team scheduled to tour London and %Tanzania in June 1993.
That day, Tejas left home in Worli's Nehru Nagar at 1.10pm to take bus route 86 to Shivaji Park. Barely had the bus reached Century Bazar at 1.30pm than a deafening explosion occurred, destroying everything in sight. "I was at work when word arrived that a bomb had exploded in Zaveri Bazar. I called my wife who said Tejas had left for practice. My heart sank." Mehta searched all night and at 8am he found his son's corpse in a hospital.
Coach Achrekar would often praise Tejas for his sharp reflexes on the cricket field. But these reflexes crumbled before the largest consignment of RDX to be used since World War II. "Tejas loved to sit on the front seat near the driver. He did not get time to blink. I found my son in sitting position with his eyes open, just as he had been on the bus," Mehta says, breaking down in tears. "His entire body was burnt save the face, so I could identify him."
At Dadar's Plaza Cinema, another target of the Memon brothers, 73-year-old Dattatraya Pawar is happy to live to see the wheels of justice turn. "If the verdict came sooner, the 2006 train blasts and 26/11 could have been averted. I was sitting at the ticket counter when the bomb exploded. Two colleagues died while I underwent multiple surgeries. I still carry shrapnel inside my body," Pawar says.
As Pawar's eyes well with tears and younger employees watch in silent anguish, theatre manager Yogesh More tries to change the mood with some black humour: "Smile, my friend. We could have been observing your 22nd anniversary." Pawar breaks into a grin, prompting a laugh from the rest.