The spate of shoot-outs that have serrated the city have shattered a long-cherished belief of the police that the common man in Mumbai is the ``safest in the world.'' In the last six months the city has averaged ten shoot-outs a month, and over a 150 people have died by the gun majority of them in broad daylight on streets crawling with people who see nothing, hear nothing and speak nothing. Police statistics also conveniently omit to say how or why in some of these shoot-outs innocent citizens with no criminal record, with no known links to the Underworld are being mowed down.

In the single columns tucked away in newspapers is the larger story of people like 17-year-old Bhushan Patil, a student of class XI at Gyan Sadhna College in Thane who was caught in the crossfire on February14. The owners of Patel Saree Centre next to Prerna Classes that Bhushan attended, were under threat from the Chhota Rajan gang to pay Rs 25 lakh as extortion money. On the given date police set up an ambush. Both parties opened fire and eventually the gangsters escaped. The saree shop owners were saved, no money was paid, only Bhushan Patil, on his way to study, was caught in the cross-fire.

In her chawl at Vartak Nagar, Thane, Bhushan's mother Rohini listens expressionlessly as one fumbles to explain the story for which we need to interview her. Just at the mention of her son's name her eyes flare in pain.

For a fraction. And then, there's comprehension. ``We don't know whose bullet killed him, the policemen's or the gangsters'. We don't know how everyone escaped and only Bhushan died.'' She talks with great precision as if the events of the day have been frozen in her mind: ``He left home at 2.15 pm. His last words were that he wanted to talk to his father about extra classes. Half hour later hisfriend who lives in the house across came to tell me that Bhushan had been hurt...'' At the Thane civil hospital she and her younger son, Vishal were told that there had been an accident but Bhushan would get all right. ``One side of his body was drenched in blood, but they said he just needed an operation,'' says Rohini.

When the Patils said they'd prefer to shift their son to a better hospital they were denied permission as the police formalities were still not over. Finally, when the police arrived three hours later they were allowed to shift him to a private hospital where it was left to Dr Milind Vaidya to inform them of the inevitable. ``He said Bhushan ka maidu (brain) phoot gaya hai aur woh ek ghanta bhi nahin rahega,'' Rohini breaks down. But Bhushan lived through the night. At 8 am the next morning, when she went to see him, Rohini Patil says she realised something was amiss. ``It was the stillness perhaps.'' At 8.10 am, roughly 19 hours after he was shot, Bhushan Patil was declareddead.

Shabbir Shaikh's family did not even have the luxury of these precious few hours. On the morning of May 14, 34-year-old Shabbir, a garment exporter left his house at Millat Nagar in Andheri in his black Maruti Esteem. Five minutes later, gangsters, allegedly men of the Malaysia-based Chhota Rajan, pumped 19 bullets into him. Death was instantaneous. His family could barely piece his body together. According to the Oshiwara police station, Shaikh was killed by the Underworld as a case of ``mistaken identity''. The gangsters apparently aimed to kill Salim Durrani aka Salim Tonk, an accused in the serial blasts case who lived in the building adjoining Shaikh's. Both men were fair, over six feet and bore an uncanny resemblance. While Shaikh drove a black Maruti Esteem with tinted glasses, Durrani drove a black Mitsubishi Lancer with tinted glasses. Durrani who left home each day between 10.45 and 11 am to attend the special Tada court had sought an exemption that day while Shaikh who used to leave homeafter 11 am left early that day as he had fixed up some interviews in his office at Oshiwara Industrial Estate.

``What kind of fate is this?'' asks Shabbir's younger brother Shahid. Even a month-and-a-half after the incident there is a whiteness on his face, as if the shock has bleached all colour. His mother Qumrunissa weeps: They just say it's a case of mistaken identity.

Do these people know ke begunaaho ka dil phatta hai? He was such a handsome, strapping boy, a wonderful son how do I reconcile to this loss?'' In one corner of the plush room sits Saima, Shabbir Shaikh's Tanzanian bride of two-months.

She sits in complete stillness and just shakes her head when asked about her plans for the future.

Far removed, in a cottage behind Orlem Church, Malad, similar incomprehension has paralysed the Rodrigues. On May 3, their 23 year old son and breadwinner, Keith was shot dead at Copper Chimney Restaurant at Saki Naka. Keith, a steward at the restaurant, was killed apparently by men owing allegiance togangster Ali Budesh, to serve a warning to the owner of the restaurant to pay up the extortion money or face a similar fate.

``That evening someone from the restaurant called us to say that Keith had been shot and that we should reach Rajawadi hospital,'' says Keith's father Elex Rodrigues. ``At the hospital the police did not even show us where Keith was and asked me to sign a piece of paper that we had received Keith's body. I refused saying that I wanted to see my son first.

They were adamant and so was I. Finally, I was told that I could come and collect him from JJ hospital the next day.

Much later as Elex Rodrigues pieced the events leading to his son's death he was told that on May 3, at around 6 pm, when the restaurant is not open to patrons, two men walked in demanding food. Keith who was on duty informed them that the restaurant was closed. Following a brief altercation the two men scribbled a number on Keith's palm, presumably asking him to deliver the message from Ali Budesh to hismanagement.

The warning was not deemed enough for they returned within minutes and opened fire. One bullet hit Keith in the leg, the other, a 9mm bullet,'' says Elex, ``was shot from point blank range and it killed him on the spot.''

These are instances that neither the Mumbai police nor the Underworld would like to acknowledge. or, among the many myths around the Underworld is one which says they never target an innocent; a skewed Honour Among Thieves kind of code that perhaps permits them to live with their conscience. It's also a story readily bought by the law enforcing authorities.

For, an extension of this theory is that those who are killed in encounters or shoot-outs with gangsters must be involved in some kind of illegal activity and therefore sudden death is not an unforeseen tragedy. Or an indication of deteriorating law and order situation.

It is a theory the police is still loath to let go. A top ranking police officer who spoke to us extensively on the soaring crime graph, off-the-recorddismissed these deaths as ``exceptions'' and maintained that the Underworld. ``does not target innocents.''

What he does not say is that the Underworld can make mistakes; that in a crossfire a bullet does not discern an innocent from the tarnished; that gangsters can make an exception to their rule and kill an innocent to ensure their message gets across; that police obfuscation has made it almost impossible to figure out just who is innocent or for that matter what constitutes innocence.