Thread by @dhavalkulkarni

The 1st terror attack in #Mumbai happened on 14 September 1946. The fallout of these unfortunate events also have a link with two iconic figures in #Maharashtra-Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre and Prabodhankar Thackeray, father of #ShivSena chief Bal Thackeray #history #MumbaiPolice

1946: India was on the boil due to communal tensions & the impending partition of the sub-continent. Mumbai too had seen communal riots take place, allegedly sparked off by the Muslim League.

14 September 1946: Two men who were travelling in a taxi from Bhuleshwar to Dhobi Talao opened fire from a sten gun at Kalbadevi. They killed seven people and injured 20. They had hired a taxi driven by Nariman Basta near Byculla station.

Nariman's teenage son was sitting on the front seat. The passengers asked Nariman to proceed to Bhuleshwar. There, one of the two passengers asked Nariman's son to alight and fired at him. Nariman ran towards his injured son. The passengers then hijacked the taxi (BMT 882)

At Kalbadevi, one of the passengers fired at the passersby from a sten gun, leading to panic and mayhem. The taxi was found abandoned later. The #MumbaiPolice handed over the investigations of the case to deputy inspector Sami.

The Mumbai Police realised that the assailants could be army men. The assailants were found to be Mirza Abdul Majid and Gulam Ahmed alias Akhtar Hussein, who were deserters from the Army's Eastern Command, Calcutta.

They wanted revenge for the 1946 Mumbai riots in which 300 people were killed. Weapons and ammunition were seized from them. On 23 June 1947, the accused were sentenced to death. Sami was awarded the police medal in 1947 for his stellar investigations in the case.

Then, Acharya Atre, the journalist, playwright, educationist, humorist & politician (yes, he wore & juggled many hats with ease) was a leading campaigner for the #Congress. A great orator, Atre used to go hammer & tongs at the #HinduMahasabha led by V.D. Savarkar.

After the terror attack, Atre was upset at what he felt was the pussy-footing of the #Congress vis-a-vis the activities of the #MuslimLeague led by M.A. Jinnah and their communal propaganda that led to disastrous consequences.

On 22 September 1946, Atre wrote a stinging editorial in his newspaper Navyug. In the same edition, the fiery non-Brahmin activist Prabodhankar Keshav Sitaram Thackeray wrote a piece questioning who would protect Hindus in this rising tide of goondaism.

Thackeray said it was necessary for Hindus to retaliate in equal measure in case of any aggression targeted at them. This led to an upset Bombay Presidency Government seeking Rs 6,000 as securities from Atre.

This turn of eventsled to a gradual break between Atre and the Congress as Atre felt that the Congress had “surrendered” to the violence perpetrated by the Muslim League.

Later, both Atre and Thackeray were among the leading lights of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement that led to the state of #Maharashtra being formed with #Mumbai as its capital on 1 May 1960.

The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, which included the Communists, Socialists, non-Brahmin activists & others was the first such anti-Congress coalition in India

Sources:
Arvind Patwardhan, Mee Mumbaicha Police
Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre, Karheche Paani- Part III
Zeeshan Shaikh, Mumbai Rewind: Kalbadevi and its pre-Independence connection with one of Bombay’s first terrorist attacks, The Indian Express, 23 October 2021