Black Friday

An account of the series of bombings in Bombay on 12 March 1993 and the investigation that followed. More than two hundred and fifty people were killed in the attacks and hundreds injured. The film follows it along two lines: the police effort to find those responsible, and the stories of the people who planned and carried it out. The second line is what stands out. The film does not present the perpetrators as one-dimensional; how each became involved, what each expected, and what they went through while fleeing afterwards are told in detail. The interrogation methods on the police side are likewise shown as they were. The source is the 2002 book by the journalist S. Hussain Zaidi. The film's own story is part of the file. When the production was finished the trial was still running and its release was halted by court order. The ban lasted about two years; it could not open until February 2007. Kay Kay Menon plays the police chief running the investigation and Pavan Malhotra one of the men involved in the planning. One of the hardest examples of its genre for anyone who likes Indian cinema and crime films drawn from record. It is long and told in a documentary register; it offers relief nowhere.