Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’ (14 page)

At the end of a dimly lit conference room was a young lieutenant from intelligence. She was sitting at the head of the conference table with a laptop and projector. “This is Avantika. She will guide you through the process,” Colonel Thakur introduced her before leaving the room.

Avantika explained, “We have put in some filters to the database so as to reduce effort and time. The first filter is rank as we believe that the officer in question is in the ranks between a Lieutenant Colonel and Captain now, or if he has left the army, he would be of that seniority. The second filter is that he is more likely to be serving, or has served as an SSG and ISI at some point in his career. So let’s begin.”

Ankush stared at the screen; the pictures flashing past were taken during military ceremonies, marriages, foreign courses and postings, class photographs and numerous other occasions. After three hours, Ankush asked for a break. He went upstairs and lit up a cigarette. He was feeling dizzy.

They started after lunch again, meticulously going through hundreds of pictures. It was at 1800 hours in the evening when looking at a graduating photograph of a class from Staff College in the US that Ankush asked Avantika to pause the screen. An intense young Major was staring at the camera among other officers from various countries. Ankush gestured at Avantika by nodding his head. By typing a few commands on the keyboard, Avantika conjured up a collage on the screen. There were five different photographs, a photograph of the same officer being decorated for gallantry in action, another of him in a blue beret in Congo, a third one, a video still from the day of Musharraf’s coup and one of him being decorated during the Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad by Musharraf on 23 March 2001. There was also a still from a CNN news report showing a young officer and a few men moving out of the Islamabad airport after the coup had ended. Ankush was sure. He was the same guy.

Avantika called Colonel Thakur. While he came in, she noted the number under the screen and sent for the file.

Colonel Thakur was in a good mood. He had something concrete and he knew it. He looked up from the file he had been reading and saw Ankush and Avantika sitting expectantly.

“He is Major Shezad Khan. And we have a file which lists him as still serving. He is a gallant chap, decorated twice. The Tigers wiped out his squad in Kargil while he was wounded and evacuated from the battle.”

The Tigers he referred to were the pilots of No 1 Mirage 2000H squadron which operated in the theatre during the Kargil War. Thakur continued after a sip of water.

“Disappeared from the records for two years… ISI deputation with SS division… I am guessing. And there is a mention of him training an SSW PAF unit. The report from Mustaq also confirms presence of men in SSW uniforms with this guy. That is something, right? There is a clear connection to PAF in this operation. I have a report from RAW confirming that some people were also trained in the Airbase for a hush-hush operation recently. Well, let me share it with that RAW spook. Until then, Ankush, you are being attached to this unit. Colonel Rathi will take care of the matters”.

“Sir, what about my unit? We are moving into operations tomorrow. I’d rather fly back now that we have identified this chap,” Ankush said.

“Major, an operation here and there does not matter too much right now. But this man, Shezad, is here to carry out a major operation. And you will be useful to us when we close in on him. You have your orders, I suggest you follow them,” Colonel Thakur dismissed him curtly.

The Colonel sent the picture to his MI officer in the valley to cross check with the militant in their custody.

Next he requested files of the Indian officers posted in the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) during the same period. Phone calls to the right people confirmed that there was an Indian contingent with two officers posted in the same administrative office as Major Shezad Khan during his deployment in the Congo. Both officers were still serving.

Colonel Thakur had the first one on phone in a few minutes: A Lieutenant Colonel Kartar Singh of the Poona Horse Cavalry unit in Jaisalmer, a desert town in Rajasthan.

“Sure sir, I remember him. First class chap. He was a civil
military liaison officer with the International MONUSCO brigade. I knew him, so did Capt Nair from 18
^th
Grenadiers, sir.”

Communications with the right people ensured that both men were on military aircrafts in a matter of hours and on their way to Delhi. Capt Nair who was posted in Ladakh at the time, was having a few beers in the mess and found himself being unceremoniously asked to change into uniform by his boss and put on a waiting IL76 for Delhi.

Next morning they joined Ankush in a conference room at the AHQ. Both officers were very inquisitive but Ankush parried their queries by feigning ignorance. He had no idea what he could give away. Once coffee was served, Colonel Thakur and an interrogation specialist from MI joined the trio.

“Well gentlemen, I want you to recollect everything about this Major you can remember. Everything.”

Nair started off first, “He is a first-class officer from Staff College in Leavenworth. I remember he wore a ribbon of Tamgha-i-Jurat. He was with me in the civil military liaison team in the Force headquarters. We reported to the same person, a firang, a Belgian. He frequented the Indian contingent mess very often. He used to have a drink and a few snacks and head back to his billet around 2000 hours.”

Kartar Singh nodded, “He liked the cook there and was a friendly sort. I remember him always walking down from the office at around 1800 hours. In fact, many times I used to go with him too. Usually after the phone call he used to make home. We were the only three south Asian officers in the office.”

The investigator, a young MI officer interjected, “What phone call? Every evening?”

Nair answered, “Yeah, he had something about calling his mom every evening, and since the call from office used to be free, he used to call from there itself.”

“Call Pakistan?” enquired Thakur.

“No, the U.S. His mom was staying there with his brother. I remember, on leave he took the UN flight to Europe to take a connecting flight to the US before returning to Pakistan. Both of us had gone home via Dubai.”

“What else; was there anything which you remember, some action, habit?”

Kartar Singh answered, “You know, he had a small printed poster of General Erwin Rommel on his desk.”

Nair added, “And I remember his radio call sign was funny … Fox One. He used it to sign-off his radio calls in field. I remember he was pretty pleased when he got that as his call sign. We were all inducted together, you know.”

“Hmmm…all these pictures of Pakistani officer and questions, is this something we should keep quiet about?” queried Nair seriously.

“Yes, you should,” replied Thakur matter of factly. “So we have a Fox Hunt on our plate…. Outfoxing a fox… I like the idea,” Thakur smiled as he said that.

Nair was asked to stay back with Ankush, and Kartar Singh was asked to return to his unit.

Before leaving the office, he mailed the file on Major Shezad to Sanjay.

RAW HQ Lodhi Road, New Delhi

As Major Shezad’s picture loaded on the screen, Sanjay gasped, audibly.

Rajat turned around from the screen, “Something wrong?”

“I will be a son of a bitch! I know this bastard, hell I know him…” Sanjay muttered as he bought a cigarette to his lips.

As more pictures loaded on the screen, Sanjay’s thoughts went
back to a sweltering evening in Kabul. It was his second tour of duty and the Wing was still getting used to having a proper base in Afghanistan. A day before, news had come in about an attack on an Indian company setting up a power cable in southern Afghanistan. A payback was being planned. A senior officer from RAW HQ in Delhi had flown in and briefed the team. Sanjay was asked to get a squad ready. A band of Baloch fighters he had trained with and prepared over the last three months was to take part in a strike across the western border of Afghanistan. The target was a power substation at the Gwadar port.

“You will have to go in by sea; the Balochs will travel to Karachi and then onwards by road.”

Each of the ten Balochs was recruited from the Middle East, working in restaurants and hotels. Every one of them had been screened for months and selected on the basis of their bitterness towards the Pakistani state. More importantly, each had his immediate family in the Middle East. Sanjay and his boss had picked them out, screened them, checked them…. “Even looked down their stinking butts…” as his boss said. Post the preliminaries, they were given Indian passports and flown to Delhi. A special ARC flight flew them to Chakrata.

Sanjay and the men had trained together for three months. The men had returned to the Middle East awaiting orders, and Sanjay to Afghanistan.

Now as the plan to retaliate took form, five of the Balochs could fly in with their Pakistani passports, unmarked and unsuspected. For Sanjay it was to be a longer and harder journey.

A week later, an Indian ship transporting tea unloaded a sailor on the portside at Chabahar, Iran. As he walked down the quayside, a man got out of an old Mercedes and waved. “Samsher, come Samsher! It’s me, don’t you recognise me?” The
sailor waited for a second for the man to walk into a street lamp, recognised an old friend and removed his hand from inside his jacket. The Berretta could stay in its shoulder harness for now.

The man who hailed him was a senior member of the Baloch National Force (BNF), a guerrilla army fighting the Pakistanis, exiled but unbroken, he was RAW’s ally in Chaabahar port in Iran. The port is being developed, at least a railway line to the port, by Indian assistance. Being close to Baluchistan, the port offered RAW an excellent opportunity to have its men on ground as ‘contractors’ or ‘consultants’. A strong Baloch community allowed building links.

“Aayaz Bhai! It’s so good to see you…” Samsher exclaimed as he got into the car.

“And you too Samsher. Did you have a good journey? I can never imagine travelling on a boat like this. I get sick just looking at it in the port.”

Sanjay smiled, “One does what one must Aayaz bhai! So is my transport ready?”

Aayaz laughed loudly, “I am your transport. We are driving to the border. My brother Noora and his men are crossing over tomorrow at dawn, and we must reach them by 4.00 am. There are some Pakistani clothes in the back. You better change into them now.”

At the crack of dawn, Samsher and Noora’s merry band of smugglers crossed into Pakistani territory. A chill went down Samsher’s spine. It was his first time in the hornets’ nest.

It was in the late afternoon that Noora dropped him on the outskirts of Gwadar. Samsher reached into his kameez, a loose Pakistani tunic, and took out a cell phone, dialled a number from memory and bought a cup of tea and a cigarette at a small kiosk. A few minutes later, a motorcyclist on an old Honda 100cc bike stopped near him and said, “The clouds seem to be dense today.”

Samsher smiled and answered, “Yes they are dense because of the high temperatures,” the passwords exchanged and identities established. The man shook hands with Samsher and they rode away.

In less than thirty minutes, he was in a basement of a farmhouse owned by a local chieftain, ‘the sardar’ who hated the Pakistanis for taking over his land for a military cantonment. The basement was lit by two bulbs hanging from the roof. The five Balochs had arrived the earlier night from Karachi. They were already checking out the weapons, a mix of various vintages of AK47s and its clones.

“Our target is a power substation used by the Chinese construction firm to run machines for the port. We have to destroy it as a lesson to occupiers,
Are you ready
!?”

The men answered together “
Inshallaha
!”

They discussed the plan late into the night; the substation was in its own compound, the nearest military facility was ten kilometres away and the local FC troops didn’t venture out after dark. Samsher selected an AK 47, a dependable looking one, and three magazines. He fired them off into a target built into the basement.

At dawn all the men went to sleep. The attack was planned at 2100 hrs that night. The afternoon consisted of a once over with each of the fighters running over their roles and the support team of local BNF. The men were code named Alfa, Beta, Charlie, Zeta, Duke and Tango, the last being Samsher’s.

The plan called for the team to go in, fix explosives and take care of any personnel present at the target while the BNF fighters would protect the parameter and take care of the guardhouse.

At 1930hrs, Samsher called his boss in Kabul, “Well, Samsher, we got some fresh updates from the target. Yesterday afternoon, two Chinese military engineers have moved in to correct some
fault and the cell phone records show they are still there,” his boss informed him.

“Does that mean more guards?” Samsher asked.

“There are two extra armed FC troopers, so now you have two more armed personnel on ground.”

Samsher disconnected the call and informed his men. Post a light dinner, the attackers climbed into the two Toyota pickups. Five team members in one and the five BNF men in another. Samsher sat in the cab with a cache of explosives which BNF had supplied. He checked his watch, it was 2045hrs. The pickups drove out of the farm house and turned into the night towards their target.

The target was isolated and included a substation housing the machinery and a small outhouse with living quarters for five people. The entire substation was encircled by a chain linked fence with a single gate. As per intelligence, there were seven people today: two guards, two FC body guards for the Chinese and one caretaker and the two Chinese men, of course.

The vehicles were parked behind a rocky outcrop and the men coveredthe last 500 metres on foot. The BNF rebels set up a parameter and staked the guardhouse. Alfa and Delta went ahead and cut the telephone lines.

“Surprise will be our primary protection. Charlie and I will cut a hole in the chain link fence. We rush in and set up the explosives and then disappear. We all know our target points? Right?”