The pictures show consequences of a vicious atmosphere: Justice Srikrishna

It's been 32 years, but photojournalist Sherwin Crasto still trembles recalling the violence that rocked Bombay during the 1992 riots and 1993 bomb blasts.

- Sabah Virani

MUMBAI: As a photographer for a newspaper ("The Independent"; discontinued later), he saw the death and destruction all around - a history captured on film, for all to see and remember in the future. On Saturday, keeping that last promise, an exhibition of 44 photographs taken by 14 of the city's top photojournalists, titled "Forty four thousand words" was inaugurated at the Mumbai Press Club.

"A train had arrived from Gujarat. Just as the travellers started walking from Bandra Terminus to the Bandra station, residents from the next neighbourhood descended upon them, and stabbed two people in front of my eyes," said Crasto, detailing the backstory of a photograph of his that the then-home minister would allege was fabricated. "It was only afterwards that I realised there was a third stabbing in the photo of a person facing me, his attacker behind. On the wayside, which is cropped out, one man stood ready to throw stones at me and another was hurtling towards me with a bamboo stick. I fled on my scooter."

The allegations of fabrication then set the police after him, with Crasto hiding out in the dark room, as the newspaper prepared to publish a rebuttal with photographs from his film reel depicting the sequences of events of the day.