The Meadow

by Adrian Levy

  There was something else about the kidnap team that pleased Sikander. Some of its members were Kashmiris, who had been included for their local knowledge, contacts and allegiances to local insurgent groups who might be called on to assist the operation. It was also important to make sure al Faran had a genuine azadi element to it, so the Indian government could not turn the kidnappings into a political issue, blaming Pakistan for interfering on Indian soil.

  The most senior Kashmiri was Qari Zarar, an old hand from Doda, a district in Jammu, the southern half of the state. Zarar had been recruited primarily for his mountaineering skills. He could read a track like no one else, but his nerve had been called into question. Sikander worried about him. The Pashtuns had an expression, which translated as ‘last man standing’, that referred to a man’s courage under fire. Whenever a Soviet helicopter gunship had roared overhead in Afghanistan during the 1980s, its auto cannon spitting out three thousand rounds a minute, the first person to hit the deck would be thrown out of the unit, and the last would be made the leader. Although he had not fought in Afghanistan, Zarar was thought of as having ‘a mouthful of dirt’. Beside him would be a sixteen-year-old novice, also from Doda, a teenage gujjar boy who Zarar called beta, or son. This boy was rumoured to be so green he barely knew how to shoulder a rifle. But he did have hidden uses, Sikander was advised, including a thorough knowledge of the secret shepherds’ routes through the high Pir Panjal and into the deadly Warwan.

  Sikander could not quite put his finger on it, but for some reason he was still filled with anxiety. The team was an awkward mix of men and boys, with different allegiances and priorities, some too weak, in his opinion, to see things through, others too strong-willed and unpredictable for such a delicate operation. Having been in the business of kidnapping several times already, including direct experience of holding Western hostages, this was not the unit Sikander would have chosen. But he was not in overall charge, his authority having been significantly weakened by the loss of the Afghani and Masood, as well as the failure of the Housego and Mackie operation. It was too late to gripe or turn back. But in March 1995, as he awaited the team’s arrival in south Kashmir, busying himself concealing weapons, ammunition and food in the horseshoe of hills above Anantnag, Sikander received some alarming news.

  Instead of making their way directly to Anantnag, as had originally been intended, the al Faran party had been forced to divert to the ancient citadel of Charar-i-Sharief, in Badgam district, twenty miles south-west of Srinagar. Heavy snow and rain had hampered their passage down from the LoC, and when they reached the valley they encountered heavier Indian patrols than had been expected. Unable to push on, they had decided to consolidate at Charar-i-Sharief, a wooden medieval settlement, closely stacked on a knife-edge of a hillside, which was known to strongly support the militancy. As far as the Indian security forces were concerned, the town was a vipers’ pit of enemy gunmen at the best of times, and in March 1995 thawing militants from many different groups were known to have converged there, holing up in and around Charar’s main attraction, a wooden mausoleum and prayer hall that had been erected in ancient times because of a story that the flying coffin of Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali, a famous rishi, or saint, who had attracted a vast following in the fourteenth century, had descended from the heavens and chosen Charar as its final resting place.

  The arrival in Kashmir of the remains of Noor-ud-din had had an enormous impact on the region, gradually transforming it from Hinduism to Islam. Noor-ud-din, who had spent his last years living in a cave, surviving, it was said, on only one cup of water a day, had even been chosen as Kashmir’s patron saint, a decision that had infused the region with its unique flavour of Sufism. This holiest of shrines had become a place of pilgrimage for devotees from across the subcontinent. Relics of the Sheikh’s life and death were guarded inside a complex decorated with chandeliers and ancient Persian rugs, and surrounded by a maze of inns and food halls, markets and boarding houses – a Kashmiri Lourdes, flocked to by hundreds of thousands of worshippers of all faiths, especially the sick. More importantly to the insurgents, all approaches to the shrine could be observed, making it the perfect redoubt, with the added advantage that the reverence it inspired made the Indian security forces tiptoe around its boundaries.

  When the brothers of al Faran arrived seeking refuge in Charar-i-Sharief in March 1995, they discovered they were not the first. Ahead of them was a group of Kashmiri and Pakistani insurgents under the command of Haroon Ahmed, a mercenary from Peshawar. Known to his men as ‘Mast Gul’, or simply ‘the Major’, he had come over to boost the Kashmiri insurgency, working for Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the largest of the indigenous Kashmiri militant groups, which had also been lavished with cash and weapons by the ISI. Now Mast Gul had stockpiled munitions in the holy of holies. ‘I had hoped to lure India into a direct attack,’ he said later, ‘bringing about a battle in this holiest of cities that would make the entire ummah [Muslim world] rise up in hatred.’

  The Indian security forces were aware of this plan, and instead laid siege to the town. The brothers of al Faran found themselves stuck in the middle. Although the Movement (Pakistani) and HM (Kashmiri) were rivals, they shared a common enemy in India, and both had a loyalty to the Kashmiri freedom movement and the ISI. So when Mast Gul told them, ‘You will fight with us,’ Abu Jindal’s boys could not refuse him.

  The Movement had intended for the Operation Ghar party to arrive in Anantnag quietly and well-rested. But at Charar-i-Sharief they were press-ganged into another man’s operation. In Anantnag, Sikander became frantic on hearing this news. It was already mid-March. The hostages should have been seized by now, yet every morning he read in the papers of the siege hardening.

  The frozen spring thawed into early summer, and still there was no let-up. Sikander was about to send word that a new team should be sent from Pakistan, when in the early hours of 10 May 1995, two explosions rocked Noor-ud-din’s shrine. He saw the footage for himself, broadcast live by local and international TV channels that had gathered on a neighbouring hillside to watch events. It showed how the ancient wooden edifice crackled and smoked before flames licked through it, panicking the Indian security forces that ringed it, who tried to douse the flames, at the same time keeping a lookout for Mast Gul and his men. But the HM fighters never emerged, and the soldiers failed to extinguish the fire. By dusk the security forces were surveying a dismal scene: more than two thousand ancient homes destroyed, along with the shrine itself. The footage was broadcast everywhere.

  A powerful story spun its way across continents that the Indian Army had deliberately torched the shrine in order to smoke out the HM cell. This was vehemently denied by India, which insisted that the militants holed up inside had done the deed themselves. However, given their track record in Kashmir, the Indian security forces were now plausibly framed. Almost as demoralising, Mast Gul and most of his men had slipped away through the choking smoke. Abu Jindal, the leader of the al Faran kidnap party, had not been so lucky. He had been captured, and a third of his men killed. Even before commencing Operation Ghar, the brothers were leaderless and down to sixteen.

  Two weeks later Mast Gul emerged triumphant, staging an impromptu press conference on 26 May from a new hideout, in which a senior HM commander presented him with a 100,000-rupee reward for his ‘heroic deeds’ in escaping the siege at which ‘India had brazenly levelled one of Islam’s most historic sites’. Only later did he confess to supporters in Peshawar that it had in fact been his boys who struck the match. ‘I did what India could not,’ he said, recounting how they had poured thick black lines of gunpowder around Noor-ud-din’s shrine before setting it alight.

  Sikander’s bile rose as he read about Mast Gul’s speech. He knew he had to come up with a salvage plan. Operation Ghar was now three months behind schedule, and had lost sight of its original targets: the foreign engineers. By the time the depleted kidnap team made it to the rendezvous point near Anantnag, it would be June. They w
ould be fractious, exhausted and rudderless. Sikander took a decision. They needed to settle on easier prey, he told his comrades, forgetting all of his previous reservations. The summer trekking paths around Pahalgam would soon be attracting a trickle of foreign tourists. He had done this once before, he told his men. Through gritted teeth, he said it would be as easy as picking walnuts.

  FIVE

  Kidnap

  Sitting on the riverbank, her journal open on her lap, Jane Schelly glanced up at the two Kashmiri guides squatting by the stove. Vegetables and rice again, she thought, her heart sinking. Bashir and Sultan were squabbling. Something was wrong. This was their last night together, and if she was honest, she was looking forward to saying goodbye. She was grateful for all the humping of kit, the cooking and the renditions of Kashmiri love songs, and even the convoluted accounts of local lore and the circular stories that started but never ended. However, there had been a subtle but significant shift in relations earlier in the day as a result of the argument over the ‘snow-blocked’ pass. ‘I now realised that I no longer trusted them,’ Jane recalled. That was the nub of it. Or maybe it was just her tooth, which continued to ache. ‘Note to self: call the dentist when we get back,’ she remembered thinking as she watched Bashir lecturing Sultan on the best way to dice onions.

  She shivered in the coolness of the dusk and thought about going to the tent to get an extra layer of clothing, but her feet were throbbing from the long day’s trek. It was just past 5 p.m. on 4 July, and the sun had already sunk behind the ridgeline, leaving the campsite several degrees colder than when they had arrived. Instead, she wrapped her fleece more tightly around herself and went back to her journal, to finish describing the aborted attempt to cross the Sonarmas Pass.

  Then, an indeterminate flickering drew her eye. Struggling to focus in the fading light, she thought she saw a group of figures approaching. They appeared from a clump of pine trees. Had they been spying on her, watching the camp, she wondered. She didn’t have time to think about it now, as they were heading straight for her, walking and then trotting. It was the antelope and the lion, a moment of precognition.

  Trying not to stare, Jane estimated that there were a dozen of them, dressed in an assortment of long robes and shawls, like medieval warriors. Some wore dark indigo turbans, others flat woollen caps, and their hair and beards were long, their skin dark and unwashed. As they drew closer she saw that some were wearing military-style green-and-khaki tactical vests. For a moment she thought they might be mountain police, but although she and Don had passed the occasional army patrol, she had never seen men like this. She looked about, but there was no one else around, just her, Don, Bashir and Sultan. She glanced over at Don, still down at the river. He had seen the strangers too, and nodded down at his soapy hands as if to say, ‘Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.’ Don would work this out, she reassured herself.

  As the men neared, Jane saw they were stained by sweat and dirt, as if they had been out in the wilds for many days. Beneath their shawls they carried rifles and coils of ammunition. Were they some kind of irregulars, a part-time government unit deployed in the mountains? One of them called out to Sultan, who looked up, utensils clattering to the ground as the man barked questions in what Sultan recognised as Pashto-accented Urdu, his language and tone instantly marking him out to any local Kashmiri as a foreign mujahid from the Afghan borders. Sultan tentatively answered, ‘Angresi,’ the Urdu word used for all foreigners, regardless of where they come from. The armed men moved closer, and motioned for Don and Jane to go over to their tent. Jane stared hard at the one who seemed to be the leader, but he remained emotionless, almost aloof, his face swathed in a rough indigo-coloured scarf. She looked over at Sultan and Bashir. Had she been right to doubt them, she wondered. ‘Have we been set up?’ she asked herself. The gunman gesticulated with his rifle. They were to be silent. Jane did her best to remain calm, although a rage was rising within her. Was this the reason Bashir and Sultan had been so eager to come to the Lower Camp, because they were accessories in this robbery or whatever it was? As she watched the men quiz the guides further, she thought about her money and travellers’ cheques that were lying inside the tent along with Don’s camera. She needed to get in there and conceal everything.

  Bashir came running over. ‘Passports,’ he urged, sweating, and with a panicked look in his eyes. ‘Who are they?’ Don muttered under his breath. Bashir didn’t reply. Seeing the foreigners hesitate, the leader’s eyes settled on Jane and Don. ‘Just give me, please,’ Bashir insisted, thrusting out his hand. ‘He seemed genuinely afraid,’ Jane recalled. As she retrieved the passports from their tent, she considered pushing their cash inside one of the sleeping bags, but decided against it. She sat back down, and saw an itinerant gujjar stroll into the camp, carrying a basket of flat lavash bread, an incongruous moment of normality given the events of the past few minutes. Seeing the armed party a few seconds too late, the gujjar was unable to beat a retreat. He flinched as one of them beckoned him over, then grabbed a handful of lavash and stuffed it roughly into his vest. ‘This will be a test,’ thought Jane. When the gunman reached inside his kurta and produced some money to pay, she felt relieved. He was not a robber after all. But what did that make him?

  After studying the passports, most of the armed group, including the leader, broke away, heading off up the Meadow, leaving behind only two sentries. Two guards and four prisoners. She and Don had not exchanged anything more than meaningful glances about what was happening, but she knew he was thinking the same thing as her. Could they overpower them? But the men were heavily armed, and even if they could escape, it would not be without serious injury. It wasn’t worth it.

  It began to drizzle, and in an unexpected act of compassion the men gestured for Jane and Don to put on some warmer clothes. Sit down, they motioned. Jane and Don sat and watched as the strangers unravelled their turbans and laid them out on the ground along with their weapons. Then they stooped to wash their hands in the river before prostrating themselves in prayer.

  Paul Wells and Cath Moseley were waiting for dinner at the Upper Camp. Cath felt more content than at any time since they had reached India, and this was the kind of environment that suited Paul: up high in the wilds. He took snaps of their camp, black-and-white images showing the party’s three tents lined up in a row; Julie and Keith, Paul and Cath, with Bart Imler between them. In one shot, Keith Mangan, who had just got back from Tar Sar, can be seen rummaging around in his tent while Julie looks on, dressed in her warm sweatpants, hand on hip as if slightly irritated by the mess he is making. Exhausted, cold and footsore, Keith had come back elated at the end of the afternoon, saying that the scenery had been stunning, and while he was up there he had heard about a breathtaking high-altitude campsite at Sekhwas. Julie knew what he was getting at. ‘No way,’ she said, her feet still aching.

  At around 6.30 p.m., just as they were getting ready to join the others for food, Julie turned to see a group of strangers approaching their camp. Wearing robes and turbans, they were dragging Julie and Keith’s guide Bashir with them. Clearly terrified, Bashir called out that the gunmen wanted to see everyone’s passports and that they had to obey their orders. Who were these men, Keith asked, but there was no reply. ‘They had guns,’ said Julie. ‘We were surrounded.’ Everyone handed their passports over, then, following mimed instructions, sat down in a semi-circle. Gripping Keith’s hand, Julie was filled with a burning sense of dread as one of the armed men used his rifle to prod through their tent. He moved on, eventually finding Bart Imler, who had spent the day wrapped up in his sleeping bag, still complaining of sickness and a headache. What was wrong with him, the gunman asked via Bashir. Bashir said he had altitude sickness. What nationality was he? ‘Canadian,’ the sick man croaked, trying to sound as feeble as he could. The gunman threw a strip of pills at him and barked, ‘Take these,’ before walking away. They clearly wanted the tourists alive.

  It was almost dark, but the newcomers
seemed in no hurry. Whatever this was, Julie sensed, it wasn’t an impulsive bushwhacking. Possible scenarios flashed through her mind: the women raped, the men lying with their throats slit. All the time she could hear dogs yelping in some distant gujjar encampment. How could they sound the alarm? She held on to Keith. Perhaps these strangers were forest rangers, she thought weakly. Just then, one of the younger ones, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, gestured with a knife at Julie and Cath. She froze, but Bashir explained, ‘They want you to dress properly.’ T-shirts and running shorts were inappropriate, the boy had said. Julie and Cath fumed, but went off to get changed. Then everyone was ordered over to the two dhokas, where more gunmen were guarding a group of Kashmiri schoolboys who had arrived noisily in the Meadow that afternoon. Julie had watched them setting up their tents on the other side of the river, joking and larking about. Whatever she and her friends had got themselves into, these local boys were in it too, she thought. Somehow, that reassured her.

  But as the minutes ticked by while the leader established everyone’s nationality, turning the previously immaculate campsite into a tip, Julie felt as if the blood were draining from her body. She couldn’t breathe: it felt like the period of intense discomfort that is the precursor to full-blown panic. ‘I am going to die,’ she recalled thinking. ‘This is a firing squad.’ Would they end up digging their own graves, she wondered. Keith squeezed her hand. At least they would die together. But no shots were fired, and the gunmen remained calm. They ordered the Westerners to sit down, handed back the women’s passports and began rifling through all the tents again, stripping them of valuables. So it was just a robbery. Then two of the armed men marched off up the hill towards the tent belonging to a Western trekker no one had talked to: John Childs.