Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (50 page)

I reached Bhatinda at about 0100 a.m. with two departmental officers and a professional friend. My rendezvous with Riyasti was fixed at 0430 at a park frequented by morning joggers. Dressed in a jogging suit I hustled into the empty park, where Riyasti was the only soul to jog around. The hood of his jogging suit covered his face. We talked while jogging and approached a car with its ignition on. Riyasti’s personal driver Mangal Singh was on the wheels. He drove us to a house two blocks away from Gurdwara Nanaksar, where a group of youths dressed in white and saffron
cholas
(Sikh religious dress) were busy in animated discussion. I was introduced as xxxxThapa, a journalist of Nepali origin. Someone, I believe it was Harinder Singh Bhatinda, tried to verify my knowledge of Nepali language. I passed the test and was accepted as a real journalist when I produced a faked Press Information Bureau (PIB) identity card. I carried a couple of faked identity cards that described me as a doctor, pisciculturist, horticulturist and even a BBC stringer.

But all the boys were not amused by my assumed identity. One of the youths, a lanky one with flowing beard, drew a .45 Mouser and aimed at me. He searched the cloth bag that hung from my shoulder. He drew blank and was persuaded by another lanky youth to step back. He introduced himself as Atinderpal Singh, a journalist turned separatist. The others present were, Gurjit Singh, chief of Dam Dami Taksal backed AISSF, Avtar Singh Brahma, chief of Tat Khalsa and Khalistan Liberation Force and Gurdip Singh Bhatinda, a follower of Jasbir Singh Rode, the incarcerated militant appointed
jathedar
of the
Akal Takht
. It was an impressive gathering. Atinderpal was suspected to be involved in the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Brahma was the reigning king of the ‘liberated’ Mand area of Majha and Malwa regions of Punjab. He was wanted in a number of mass massacre cases. Gurjit Singh, related to the family of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale, visited Pakistan a couple of times and was regarded as the linkman between the militants and the ISI.

I was supposed to take them to Delhi for a ‘peace meeting’ with the Prime Minister. We started after hot cups of spiced tea were served and the youths said a prayer. We managed to cross over to Sirsa in Haryana before daybreak. We were received at the inspection bungalow by Kalyan Rudra, chief of the operations desk, and made a brisk dash for Delhi after a hurried breakfast.

The youths were lodged in secured rooms of Sushil Muni’s ashram. The Muni accompanied by his lady secretary wanted to interact with the youths. They refused. Later a suggestion came that they should meet Buta Singh, the Union Home Minister. This too was turned down. Gurjit Singh severely admonished Riyasti and me and warned us with severe consequences. But, I was not in favour of the PM meeting this motley group of terrorist factional leaders. They were not assessed and they had not yet spelt out the conditionality and modality of the intended talks. Sushil Muni called me aside and offered me a cash incentive and requested me to convince the youths to meet Buta Singh at least. Avtar Singh Brhama dismissed my halfhearted proposal on the plea that they had no intention to meet a low caste Sikh.

I was given to understand that the PM was keen to meet the youths and initiate peace talks. He was not against the idea of reaching a limited accord with the terrorist youths brought to Delhi. I expressed serious reservations. The youths did not represent the top echelon of the fractured terrorist movement. The reconstituted 1st Panthic Committee, the top leaders of the Khalistan Commando Force, Babbar Khalsa and the Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan etc, were not involved in this initiative. Moreover, no one was sure about the attitude of the Dam Dami Taksal. Jasbir Singh Rode and other militant appointed high priests were lodged in Tihar and Patiala jails. Mohkam Singh, a top Taksal protagonist, and Gurdev Singh Kaonke, the acting
jathedar
of
Akal Takht
were behind the bars. The known ideologues of the fractured movement were yet to be contacted. The bloody movement was not yet ready for a peaceful settlement. They were being egged upon by the ISI and militant Sikh diaspora to prepare for a prolonged struggle.

The jam lock was somewhat broken after it was agreed that Satish Sharma, an aide to the Prime Minister and the Director Intelligence Bureau would meet them. I don’t think the arrangement had pleased the home minister. I had no illusion that he would activate his linkmen in the underground to discredit and compromise the Jat Sikh youths who had spurned the offer to meet him.

The discussions conducted in the presence of Sushil Muni were not intended to evolve a clear contour for future talks. Atinderpal Singh spelt out certain conditions, which were not vastly different from the Anandpur Sahib Resolutions of the Shiromani Akali Dal and certain salient but unfulfilled clauses of Rajiv-Longwal accord. Their demands included declaration of general amnesty, release of all detainees and rehabilitation of the surrendered terrorists.

It was agreed that Tarlochan Sigh Riyasti and I would meet them at an appointed place and date somewhere near Ludhiana. Gurjit Singh also demanded an initial financial grant of Rupees two million and it was agreed that the amount would be delivered at Ludhiana.

Before I escorted the terrorist youths back to their den somewhere near Muktsar I was summoned to the inner chamber of Sushil Muni by him and was requested to strongly recommend his case for a Padma award. Pettiness of the man in white robes stunned me. I mumbled out something and readied myself to navigate the terrorist youths back to their den through police and paramilitary infested route between Delhi and Muktsar.

Gurjit and Brahma were known killers. They were different from the insurgents I happened to encounter in the North East. Though touted as ideologically and religiously fired patriots these terrorist youths preferred to fire bullets to firing words. I was not unconcerned over my safety and that of two professional associates, Tej Prakash Kaushik, a dismissed policeman and administrator of Muni’s ashram, and Ajay Vali, a Kashmiri advocate.

We left Delhi around midnight and crossed over to Punjab after ten hours of non-stop drive. Somewhere near Lambi village we were stopped by a group of armed youths owing allegiance to a faction of the Khalistan Commando Force. Gurjit fished out four AK 47 rifles from a hidden chamber of the car they were travelling and accosted the raucous youths who demanded an explanation of presence of ‘Indian dogs’ in one of the cars of the cavalcade. Riyasti pushed me down to the floor and asked Atinderpal to interact with the armed group. We were allowed to proceed after Gurjit Singh vouched that we were representatives of the BBC and were being taken to a secret rendezvous to interview some top ‘panthic’ leaders. That was too uncomfortable a close shave. We traversed through the length and breadth of Punjab before returning to Delhi via Amritsar, Ludhiana and Ambala.

Before I give a tour of another bold peace initiative of Rajiv Gandhi I should acquaint my readers with the tragic end of the initiative code named Operation Needle. I had a premonition that Rajiv Gandhi’s home minister was deeply involved in promoting his own agenda in Punjab, which did not always follow the furrow cut out by his leader. He had not taken kindly to the objections raised by the terrorist youths to his overtures to meet them in Delhi. In fact, he did not have much regard for Tarlochan Singh Riyasti, a veteran nationalist leader of Brahminical origin.

The Ludhiana rendezvous, where Riyasti and I were supposed to carry Rupees two million for Gurjit was fixed at the outskirts of the city and we were duly notified. We were given to understand that some leaders of the Panthic Committee and representatives of the KCF and Dam Dami Taksal were invited to the meeting.

Riyasti flew down to Delhi with a view to collect the amount. He waited for two days. I shuttled between my bosses and Riyasti and was finally directed to see Satish Sharma. He hummed and chummed for a while, produced a lot of cigarette smoke and finally managed to hang a smile on his face and tell me that the Prime Minister was not aware of any such deal.

I smelled a foul play and refused to accompany Riyasti to Ludhiana. By that time I had known some of the top terrorist leaders. They were more fired by vengeance and thirst for material gains than ‘Sikh patriotism’. Riyasti had no option but to attend the Ludhiana meeting. His existence was like that of a small fish in the bloodied waters of the Satluj and Beas. I could afford to fall back from the precipice. He could not. Riyasti left Delhi with empty promises and was killed by Gurjit Singh. He and his driver Mangal Singh were burnt alive inside their car. I was given to understand that Gurjit had gone mad not only over the money but deliberate leakages of his trip to Delhi by some highly placed sources in Delhi. A little bit of investigation by Bhim, Riyasti’s son, and me brought out startling facts. The details of the secret visit of the terrorist leaders to Delhi at the invitation of the Prime Minister were leaked out to a few members of the Panthic Committee by a member of the Rangreta Dal, another underground outfit launched by the Union Home Minister. That was the height of treachery-to Rajiv Gandhi and a small fry like me, if not the nation.

It was impossible to explain the intricate nuances of the situation to the Prime Minister, as I did not have direct access to him. I shared my concerns with my bosses and was advised to mind my own business. La affaire Operation Needle convinced me that Rajiv Gandhi was surrounded by hungry sharks and he was left with little option but to keep on swimming till he was devoured by his wilier political associates. He was a well-intentioned person but was not acquainted with the intricate texture that went in making Indian politics so complicated and dirty. Like all the Nehru-Gandhis before him he suffered from one cardinal deficiency: his eardrums were very sensitive. It was not difficult to make him believe something that he would not like to believe under normal circumstances. He had closed down almost all the windows to his mind under tremendous pressure of mounting scandals and rapid erosion of political base.

*

Around the same time I received a feeler that an important Punjab terrorist incarcerated in Delhi’s Tihar jail wanted to meet me. Tihar was not a strange place for me. I had visited that overcrowded jail to interrogate Charles Sobhraj, the celebrity killer and chameleon, and Maqbool Butt, the JKLF leader, who was later, hanged. At the height of Akali Dal agitation I had the opportunity of interacting with Prakash Singh Badal and G.S. Tohra inside this very jail.

I visited the jail on my own initiative as an exploratory exercise. Conducted to the maximum-security cell by a friendly jail official I was surprised to meet Jasbir Singh Rode, a nephew of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and the militant appointed
jathedar
of the
Akal Takht
.

We settled down over a cup of overly milked and spiced tea and discussed about the prevailing scenario in Punjab. Uneducated in conventional sense Jasbir appeared to be a simple person whose faith in the separatist tenets of his uncle had started wearing thin. He was tired of the prison and longed to be back home and to the ‘
gaddi
’ of the
Akal Takht
.

After some progress I was accompanied often by my controlling officer Kalyan Rudra. After three rounds of discussion I submitted an Operations Project Report (OPR) that outlined a fresh round of peace negotiation with the Panthic Committee headed by Gurbachan Singh Manochahal and Dam Dami Taksal, headed by Baba Thakur Singh. The project was approved and the Prime Minister designated Satish Sharma as the pointman for liaison with the IB and the target individuals. I was very effectively guided by Kalyan Rudra, and abundantly assisted by Tej Kaushik and Ajay Vali. My request to keep Buta Singh and Sushil Muni out of this operation was accepted by the DIB and the PMO. But the second request to associate P. Chidambaram as the pointman of the cabinet was turned down. For some reason or other we were saddled with Satish Sharma. I could not trust the shifty and catty eyes of the man, but he was there, a mighty friend of the Prime Minister.

Thereafter, I started a delicate process of subversion of the psychological diaphragm of Jasbir. I managed to spend a couple of nights inside his cell and softened up the already waning embers of separatism that once burned like wild fire. We worked over a blueprint of action and as a first step the PMO allowed the IB to transfer three terrorist appointed high priests from Patiala jail to Tihar. They were flown in a special flight and were lodged in adjacent cells. This was done to allow the ‘Dam Dami Taksal appointed’ religious leaders to consult each other and reach consensus to hold peace talks with the government of India.

Having achieved the initial success we were accosted by the insurmountable problem of obtaining the blessings of Baba Thakur Singh and Gurbachan Singh Manochahal. T.P. Kaushik and Ajay Vali were given the task to carry a letter from Jasbir to Thakur Singh and I was assigned the task of approaching Manochahal. Our emissaries obtained the approval letter from Thakur Singh after a great deal of deliberation by the feuding factions. A virulently secessionist faction headed by Mohkam Singh opposed the idea of talks with the government of India. He tipped off Dr. Sohan Singh, Wassan Singh Jaffarwal, ‘General’ Labh Singh and a few other armed militant leaders. But it was expected that the wishes of Thakur Singh and Baba Joginder Singh, father of Bhindranwale would prevail.

Establishing contact with Manochahal turned out to be as impossible as meeting the Gabriel. He headed a fiery band of armed terrorists and operated in the general area between Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Patti. A journalist friend, who doubled up as a stringer for the BBC and operated a photo-studio in the parameter-shopping complex of the Golden Temple, helped in establishing a tangible contact with the leader of the Panthic Committee and the head of the Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK).