There are many beautiful beaches on the west coast of India, but none as exquisite as Shekhadi. Here, emerald hills plunge into turquoise waters fringed with dazzling white sand.

Does that sound like a crummy tourist cliché? Forgive me; it wasn’t meant to. Because Shekhadi, you see, is no vacation paradise. For centuries, it was just another dirt-poor, obscure hamlet, peopled by peaceful fisher-folk.

Then one moonless night, a group of policemen swooped down on the silent village, dragged the men out of their beds, and beat them viciously. “Show us where you have hidden the powder “ they yelled at their bewildered victims. Perplexingly, only Muslim houses were targeted; the Hindu ones remained untouched.

Wails of protest from terrified women and children provoked a torrent of abuse and fresh violence. One boy’s nails were brutally wrenched out, to extort a “confession”; an epileptic old man was beaten unconscious. Then the younger males were spirited away in a police van.

Silence returned, except for the mournful sigh of the casuarinas. But this tiny coastal jewel would be forever flawed.

I visited Shekhadi one week later, following the trail of RDX that led to its sparkling white sands. By then, it had made international headlines, the landing spot for the ammunition that was used to kill 257 people in the Bombay Blasts of March 12, 1993.

The villagers had helped carry it in from the boats, never suspecting what was in those tightly sealed boxes. Never suspecting that they would be made to pay for a crime they never committed, 200kms away.

... contd.