A wedding under the shadow of Mumbai tragedies

Four beefy men at the gates of the Najam Bug Trust at Dongri are keeping a close eye on the guests streaming in.

- Vinay Dalvi, Manish Pathak and Sahyaja

Everything about the wedding taking place inside is low key, starting with the plain invite printed on a white paper that was first given to criminal advocate Farhana Shah to secure parole for the groom's mother.

And yet, for all the efforts to keep the wedding out of the public eye, several pairs of eyes and ears in Mumbai Police and central agencies have been following the preparations keenly.

Ilyas Memon and Humera Shaikh's nuptials are possibly the last in the immediate family of Tiger Memon, the key conspirator in the March 12, 1993 serial blasts, that left 257 people dead, over 700 injured, and which permanently altered. India's most cosmopolitan city.

The family home at Mahim, the Al-Husseini building which once housed all six brothers, and is now barely inhabited, is under watch by the Mahim police station's Anti-Terrorist Cell (ATC).

Teams from the National Investigation Agency, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), the Mumbai crime branch and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) are closing tuned into the chatter around the wedding. "Though, no one expects either Tiger or his brother Ayub, both of whom are thought to be hiding in Pakistan, to show up," said an officer from the Mahim police station.

"For, while there is still verifiable information on Dawood Ibrahim, very little is known to us about Tiger," he added.