25 years after Mumbai blasts, survivor recalls horror

For stockbroker Kirti Ajmera the memories of March 12, 1993, still haunt him. It was the day his life took a dark turn.

Ajmera, who was then 36, was outside the Bombay Stock Exchange in Fort area. It was a Friday like any other Friday.

He was about to enter the BSE when he heard a loud explosion and saw fire and smoke.

"There was blood all over, parts of bodies, glass shreds, broken panes and smoke," recalled   Ajmera, a 61-year-old resident of Malad.

"I too got hurt...I knew I was badly hurt. As I came to senses there was blood all over, smoke, confusion," he said, adding that the people around him were either dead or unconsciousness.

"Somehow I managed to get up....a cab driver came to my help and took me to a hospital," he said.

"My skin had come out, my hand was badly injured, I sustained injuries on my face," he told DH on Sunday, after commemorating the day by cutting a cake to observe what he says is his "second birth".

Ajmera, however, said that not much has been done for the victims.

"As per the GR, the next of the kin of deceased used to get Rs 2 lakh then and the injured a very small sum," he said, adding that now the scenario has changed.

He said that he wants to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and narrate their plight.

"Like me, there were several others who sustained severe injuries. So far, I have had 40 to 45 surgeries and I still have to undergo more surgeries as there are glass shreds which are still embedded in my body," he rued.

"I feel happy that now people are getting adequate compensation in incidents of terrorism," he added.