Mumbai Avengers

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  ‘Today, Maulana Azhar has made it possible for me to come to Mansehra and talk to you young guns, the soldiers of Allah’s army.’

  The militants cheered even louder.

  ‘Today I’m not going to tell you about jihad. I’m quite sure Maulana Azhar has taken care of that. In fact, you may know as much as I do about it. Today, I’m here to talk about the kafirs. The reason Muslims like us are tortured day in and day out. One such country is America.’

  ‘I have said it earlier, while leading the Eid-ul-Fitr prayers in Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. I am saying it again here. We should stop being patient and declare a war against them.’ Saeed was getting into in his stride.

  The audience was silent and looked on, wide-eyed in anticipation.

  ‘Americans hate Muslims, my brothers. But they are too powerful a nation for us to mess with at this juncture. When Osama was around, he got them to shit bricks. But then, unfortunately, he got old and he got weak. He didn’t prove to be as much of a threat as he had been after the twin tower attacks.’

  The crowd nodded in approval. ‘But again, I’m not here to talk about America. I’m here to talk about another country that hates not only us Pakistanis, but Muslims as well. Who am I talking about?’

  ‘HINDUSTAN!’ the crowd roared in unison. ‘Hindustan Murdabad!’

  Someone from the audience fired bursts from his AK-47 in the air in jubilation; others followed suit and the crowd cheered frantically.

  The man waited for his audience to simmer down. He continued then, in his beautifully modulated voice.

  ‘Calm down. We let them, the Indians, do the slogan shouting. Actions speak louder than words, my friends. We shall let our actions speak for us.’

  The crowd of more than a hundred young militants rose to its feet and clapped.

  ‘In November a few years ago, we shook up their country by sending a few boys like you on a boat. The Indians have been planning to get back at us, ever since. But I have a plan.’

  Saeed looked at the wide-eyed crowd, playing on their emotions. He was a showman in the way he carried himself, in the way he incited the young blood.

  ‘I have a plan, my friends. To shake the country that has oppressed us ever since Quaid-e-Azam fought for our existence. They don’t believe Muslims should exist but we will show them what we are capable of. First, we get India. Then we get America. And then, the rest of the world. We are on a mission, my friends. Allah’s mission.’ He paused and raised his arms towards the sky. ‘But first, I want to know how many of you will truly support me in my cause, in Allah’s cause, to take down this impotent country.’

  There was a huge cheer again. Mahmood Azhar rose to his feet and clapped. There were broad smiles all around – an electric air of celebration.

  Brijesh looked through his scope, his finger resting gently on the trigger. He saw the bearded mullah mouthing some words and the jubilation that followed. Stunned, he watched the man – one of the main instigators of the 26/11 attacks. He had an urge to run down to the camp with an automatic gun and pump an entire magazine into the man’s chest. He racked the bullet into the slot. He had to make it count. It was an all-or-nothing shot. One shot. That’s it. One. Damn. Shot.

  He adjusted the crosshairs to focus on the Saeed’s smiling face. He moved it slightly lower below the nose, so that the bullet’s trajectory did not affect the end result, and would still explode upon hitting him. The bullet had a tiny shot of mercury in it, which would cause the explosion upon hitting its target.

  Brijesh thought of all those who had lost life and limb in the 26/11 attacks. How had this man, who remained safely ensconced, been able to keep brainwashing and inciting gullible youths with the lure of paradise to go and kill at random without any provocation or previous enmity? They had caused mayhem at the instruction of this man, supposedly a religious leader but actually a merchant of death.

  He wished he could tie this man to a chair and make him suffer. The bullet was going to let him get away easily, Brijesh thought. And then he stopped thinking and pulled the trigger.

  There was a short, cracker-like explosion and the enemy’s head blew up into pieces. Bits of blood, bone and brain flew all over the stage.

  Saeed had met his maker in one stroke.

  There was pandemonium. Mahmood Azhar scurried off the stage and was soon encircled by a huge entourage of men who shielded him and put him into a jeep.

  He had left the day’s special guest behind, his face beyond recognition, but there he lay – Haaris Saeed, one of the world’s most wanted men, shot through the side of his temple.

  Vikrant quickly attached a small piece of explosive plastic with a timer to his gun, and activated it. But they had already been spotted by the counter-snipers who began firing at them.

  Brijesh and Vikrant ducked and scampered towards the car under a hail of bullets, filled with fear and excitement—and jubilation.

  The drive back to Islamabad was exhausting for Hafeez. He had driven at ridiculously high speeds, passing various police cars on the way. His two Bangladeshi friends hadn’t spoken much at all, on the way back. They just sat beside each other, staring out of their respective windows. He had tried to start a conversation now and then, but they just replied in monosyllables. When he asked them if they had managed to get the desired pictures, they each replied with a nod. And when he asked them if something was wrong, they just shrugged. He didn’t like the mood, and he was relieved when they reached Islamabad by seven in the evening.

  There was an array of police cars and road-checks being set up. Brijesh hoped their car wouldn’t be stopped, and as if on cue, that was exactly what happened. A huge man stuck his arm out and motioned for their vehicle to halt. Hafeez cursed under his breath and delicately shifted his foot on the brake. He rolled down his window.

  ‘I need to check your car,’ the man with a stern face said. ‘Open the boot and all the doors, please.’

  They obeyed. Another huge man with an exaggerated moustache came towards their car with an enormous sniffer dog. It looked like it could eat all of them for breakfast, its tongue hanging out and exposing a set of ferocious and revoltingly yellow canines. It sniffed the front seat on the left, and then moved over to the seat right behind it. It sniffed Vikrant’s feet and started barking. Vikrant glared at it with equal ferocity. The man looked at him suspiciously, but didn’t say anything. He dragged the dog to the boot, where the equipment bags were kept. The dog smelled it and started barking even more furiously. It began to jump at the bag, pawing at it violently. Its handler had to bring his considerable strength into play to hold it back, to keep it from getting out of control.

  ‘I need you to open your bag,’ the other man commanded. Vikrant and Brijesh got out of the car and walked to the boot. Brijesh had half a mind to shoot the dog dead with the security guy’s holstered gun. Instead, he unzipped the bag and shrugged at the man who sifted through all the material for three full minutes. He didn’t find anything of particular interest, except a few pieces of photography equipment here and there alongside what was obviously a camera.

  ‘What is the camera for?’ his voice boomed.

  ‘We are on a contract with UNESCO,’ Brijesh started, with an obvious Bengali accent.

  ‘Are you Bangladeshi?’

  ‘From Dhaka,’ Vikrant said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘ID proof?’ the man demanded, with a raised eyebrow. ‘Driving licence, passport, something that proves you’re Bangladeshi.’

  Vikrant and Brijesh nodded simultaneously and dug their hands into their pockets. They got out their passports and handed them over to the man without protest. He looked at the passports, then at them, then at the passports again, hoping to catch them out on some pretext or the other.

  ‘You could talk to the man we were here to meet,’ Vikrant said finally, as if to put him at ease. He whipped out his cellphone without waiting for the man to respond and dialled Adnan Ghuman’s cell phone.

  ‘Ah,’ Ghuman replied. ‘Yes,
my friends, have you changed your minds about the edicts? Decided to do it for less?’

  ‘Actually,’ Vikrant replied with a wry smile. ‘Quite the opposite. We’re leaving Mansehra, and we need you to talk to someone.’

  Vikrant handed the phone to the security officer. His partner had moved on to another car, with the dog. The man asked Ghuman all kinds of questions. It took him five minutes to verify that the two Bangladeshis were indeed there as UNESCO volunteers.

  ‘I don’t know why your bag smells of something that made our dog bark.’ He said, as he prepared to move on.

  ‘Maybe he’s allergic to our cameras,’ Vikrant said, smiling.

  ‘Mr Ghuman said you were there to meet him,’ the man said. ‘He also asked me if I could arrest you because you don’t know how to speak respectfully.’

  Brijesh interrupted. ‘We’re sorry, sir. But we’re in a bit of a hurry. If you have a valid reason, we don’t mind staying back. But a sharp tongue sure isn’t one.’

  The big man scowled at them and then cursed loudly, as he gestured for them to get back into the car and get the hell out of there. Hafeez, who had broken into a sweat, finally seemed relieved. He rolled up the windows and turned the air conditioner on again. He sped off without any further ado, dropping them back at the Marriott hotel, where they took their bags out of the boot. They embraced Hafeez and said goodbye.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure, Hafeez bhai.’

  ‘Yes, bhai,’ Hafeez smiled. ‘For me too. Do let me know if you are back in Islamabad anytime soon.’

  ‘We will,’ Vikrant replied with a smile. He took out his wallet and handed Hafeez a thick wad of notes. Brijesh pulled his wallet out and gave him a thinner but still substantial bundle.

  ‘You’ve worked hard,’ he told him. ‘You deserve it. Khuda hafiz.’

  ‘Khuda hafiz,’ was all Hafeez could reply. He waved goodbye, sat back in his car and drove straight back to the taxi agency.

  I’ll ask Saahab for a couple of days off, he thought. I need to spend time with my family. He pushed open the door of the taxi agency to drop off the car keys.

  ‘You got back from Mansehra safely!’ his boss said, with a sigh of relief. ‘Allah ka shukr hai.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Hafeez asked him. The boss looked at him, his eyes bulging out of his sockets, then motioned to the tiny television that crackled on the table opposite him.

  The breaking news read: ‘HAARIS SAEED SHOT AT MANSEHRA RALLY.’

  And below that: ‘The weapon used was destroyed with plastic explosives on the spot.’

  Belatedly, Hafeez realized why the dog had barked.

  28

  The headline read two words but those were the words every citizen of Mumbai had yearned to read for years. Those who read the paper in the morning at home with a hot cup of tea or coffee did not touch their beverages until they had read the whole story, its sub stories and derivative stories. Those rushing to catch trains stopped to buy a newspaper from a vendor, those who were already in the crowded trains strained to read off their co-passengers, shamelessly grabbing the pages when the original reader had finished.

  The headline appearing just below the masthead of the Mumbai Times screamed, ‘Mumbai Avenged’.

  The story had been broken that day by Ashish Kumar, one of the finest and most courageous investigative journalists in the country. His investigatory prowess had earned him an impeccable reputation in journalistic circles. He was never seen in the office. He was never seen gossiping with fellow journalists. He never spent the days in coffee shops or the nights in bars. Exposing the big and powerful was his credo. He was regarded as an invisible reporter, the scourge of the high and mighty, and among a handful of reporters who could boast of having contacts in Mumbai and Delhi at every level.

  The deadline for stories at the newspaper was usually 6 p.m. and the tabloid went to print at 10 p.m. The front page normally got made by 10.30 p.m. and went for proofreading and final checking at this point. Kumar had walked into the editor’s cabin when she was about to clear the front page of the day’s edition.

  ‘I have a story,’ he said. She was busy reading the last paragraph of the front page and did not lift her head.

  ‘File it for tomorrow’s edition,’ she said.

  ‘It can’t wait until tomorrow. It has to go in today’s edition,’ he replied.

  The editor raised an angry eyebrow at Kumar. She was known to be a despotic with a mercurial temperament and high standards; hers was not an accommodating attitude. Any reporter in Kumar’s place would have been subjected to a string of angry adjectives. But she knew that he was no stenographer reporter, as most of the crime reporters of the current generation were; Kumar was different.

  She tried to read his face to ascertain if he was joking.

  ‘You know if you file the story now, our page goes way later than the deadline,’ she said at last, with a hint of irritation in her voice.

  ‘If you don’t like the story, you can sack me,’ he fired back. This calmed her fraying temper.

  ‘What’s the story?’ she finally asked.

  He briefed her in two minutes. The almost finalized front page was trashed and a new one was designed.

  The next morning, Kumar became the envy of every other journalist.

  The story was about Haaris Saeed’s killing at the Mansehra training camp. It described the difficult terrain of Mansehra and how a few Indians had managed to penetrate the foolproof security to shoot Saeed dead while he was giving a provocative speech. Normally, such a story would not have seen the light of day, but such were Kumar’s levels of persuasion, that he was able to get the home minister’s PA to cough up fragments of information that he could assemble into the massive story.

  By the next day, the media had gone ballistic. The other papers had caught up, and it was all over the television channels. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter were abuzz with stories of Mumbai’s Avengers. India’s 243 major newspapers and over thirty-nine news channels had space for nothing but the story of revenge.

  Every broadsheet had two words in their flyer headlines: ‘MUMBAI AVENGERS’ and the country was hopeful again. The news reports explained that a team of dedicated officers had risked their lives to ensure that the 26/11 attacks were avenged while the government was still stuck in the rut of diplomacy.

  The following day saw more reports, carrying details about the Avengers. The team had been given various names. Some called them Renegade Angels, some called them Rogue Attackers, some The New Vigilantes, Superheroes – however, the Mumbai Avengers caught on best, and was incorporated into the mass hysteria and the broadcast news coverage.

  The Avengers were a topic of discussion everywhere. Even the card players in Mumbai’s local trains gave up their game for a while to participate in the animated discussions around them. The support was not just verbal or superficial. It had, in a very short span of time, come to the point where people were offering prayers in the Avengers’ names at various places of worship. There was an air of celebration and jubilation everywhere.

  The government was taken aback by the support for the team and did not know how to react. After all, they were meant to have no knowledge of it. Sky was immediately summoned by the prime minister and questioned about the mission. He was flustered and could not explain the situation to his bosses and political masters. He feigned ignorance about the Avengers’ actions.

  However, he was happy with the support they were getting. His concern was that now, his best guarded secret was out—and this would have its own repercussions. Now that they were exposed, it would become more difficult to provide the team protection in case they were caught in Pakistan. This was personal now. Beyond that, it was a score that needed settling. Like Brijesh said, it was redemption they sought through the final, most audacious attack that they were planning against the Lashkar terrorists and the ISI.

  ‘Are they planning to attack Muridke?’ Sky wondered aloud.

  Whi
le the frenzy consumed the Indian media, the Pakistanis certainly could not have missed it, as sour as the taste of ignominy might be. Leading media outlets such as Dawn, Jung, GeoTV and PTV caught on to the Indian fervour and the support the Avengers were being given. The first reactions were of shock and consternation.

  The headlines screamed, ‘The Mumbai Marauders take lesson from Mossad’ in Jung. Dawn said, ‘India at its bulldozing best’. They all portrayed India as the villain that had violated the norms of democracy.

  One piece stated that the Indian bloodthirst had never stopped – now they had sent their soldiers to spill blood in their neighbouring country. Television anchors were worried about how Pakistan would deal with the infiltrating RAW agents along with their own internal issues. The Pakistani government heads immediately summoned the Indian ambassador, who assured them he was completely unaware of the mission. He was sure it had not been commissioned by the government.

  The Pakistani rangers, army and ISI were all on the Avengers’ trail and hoped to take them out before they could do further damage.

  Brigadier Arif Afridi took it as a personal challenge. He knew the Indians were highly motivated by their mission and would stop at nothing till it was accomplished. But they were all that stood in the way of him becoming the chief of ISI. He knew that one wrong move would spell doom for his career, while success could help him achieve more than he had ever dreamed of.

  29

  Islamabad, 30 June

  General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had been judged the twenty-eighth most powerful man in the world by Forbes magazine the previous year. He was the only Pakistani army chief who had been given a three-year extension by a democratically elected government in Pakistan in 2010. Perhaps he was also the only army officer who had held all the sensitive and vital positions in Pakistan, including chief of X corps, chief of army staff and above all, director of the ISI, prior to his posting as chief of army staff.

  In November 2013, following Kayani’s retirement, General Raheel Sharif was given the unenviable task of cleaning up his predecessor’s mess.