by Adrian Levy
Before he replaced the handset, he tried one last trick to appeal to Jehangir’s humanity: ‘Don’t act in haste. It is a question of human lives.’
The line was already dead.
The following day, 4 September, Tikoo was surprised when the VHF started up. Jehangir would not continue to call if al Faran thought there was no deal to be had, he reasoned, despite the recent bad blood between them. But Tikoo felt too tired to joust this morning. ‘Things are getting delayed,’ he said weakly to Jehangir, forgetting the usual pleasantries for once. ‘Appeal to your commander, and please be patient.’ Come on, he thought. ‘Get Sikander on the line. Kashmiri to Kashmiri, we can work something out.’
Jehangir responded right away: ‘There is a limit to waiting. Give me a date, even if it is a year from now.’ Tikoo decoded this to mean that he wanted the bare minimum, to know how long it would take to construct a deal – whatever that deal was.
‘Why are you talking of a year?’ Tikoo replied, hoping to sound reassuring. ‘It will take much less. What are you going to achieve by taking a hasty step?’ He tried another tactic: ‘Give me a few days. So many things have to be decided.’
This sent Jehangir off in the direction Tikoo least wanted him to go. ‘Don’t teach me things!’ the intermediary thundered, before returning to the issue of the wasted weeks spent discussing prisoner releases that were never going to happen. Jehangir was fuming now. ‘The government released militants in exchange for Rubaiya Sayeed and K. Doraiswamy [the Indian Oil director], and it took less than two months.’
Tikoo had long dreaded Jehangir raising this subject. He decided to be honest. ‘But they were locals. This time four Western governments are involved.’ Get him off the subject, he thought, and move this conversation forward. ‘Is there any possibility of any other kind of deal?’ he asked.
But today, Jehangir wasn’t playing: ‘There is not. I have told you that this time you won’t find their dead bodies.’
Tikoo was sick of this. ‘Why do you want to harm them? Why kill poor unarmed guests?’
‘Now we have decided to be stubborn. We will show you. I can give it to you in blood. I have told my accomplices.’
‘I swear to God we are doing something.’ Tikoo tried not to sound rattled. ‘Call me in the morning. That way I’ll get the whole night to do something. We may even have to send a special plane.’ It was a weak riposte, but in these desperate times, sent in to bat with no pads, gloves or box, it was the best a man could do.
The following day, 5 September, Jehangir called again, but the IG was out, caught up in the aftermath of a massive car bomb that had destroyed Ahdoo’s, a city-centre hotel that had until a few weeks ago been filled with foreign journalists. At least thirteen people were dead, and after the debris and rubble had been cleared Tikoo fought his way through the traffic to General Saklani’s office in Church Lane, where he found the Security Advisor preoccupied with the newspapers. ‘The al Faran talks have collapsed,’ Saklani said, reading aloud. India had no strategy ‘other than obfuscation’. The New Delhi plan was ‘to exhaust al Faran while giving away nothing’, according to anonymous senior sources. Tikoo said nothing, feeling the warmth leaching from his hands. In his most private moments, he was beginning to reach the very same conclusion. But who the hell had broadcast this to the world? As far as Jehangir was concerned, they were still heading towards some kind of deal. This was not a leak, but it was further proof that someone in authority was briefing against the talks.
Saklani seemed genuinely shocked. He blustered that Tikoo should ‘just keep talking’ while he investigated the source of these comments and stomped on them. Tikoo went miserably home to Transport Lane, expecting to hear nothing from Jehangir. But the radio lit up right away, and this time Tikoo got both barrels: ‘You have broken this relationship!’ Jehangir was furious.
‘Can this relationship be broken?’ Tikoo replied sullenly.
‘It has been broken.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tikoo, ‘the papers are saying our contact has snapped, and here we are talking to each other.’
‘Forget all of this long talk. I am going.’ The damage appeared irreparable for Jehangir.
A long pause. ‘Tell me,’ repeated Tikoo sincerely, ‘what can I do?’ He really wanted to fix this. The whole thing was getting under his skin. ‘I understand that you are having problems in the mountains. It is getting cold. Tell me what you want – food or grain – and I’ll have it sent in tonnes.’
‘There is no need,’ Jehangir replied. It was his turn to be sullen. ‘You will not even find their ashes.’
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, the fucking newspapers,’ Tikoo said to himself. ‘I knew at that point I had to pull the rabbit from the hat, and really fast.’ Money. There was nothing else he could think of at that moment. He told Jehangir that if al Faran was prepared to give up the hostages, he would safeguard the kidnappers’ passage out of Kashmir, with money placed in a bank account that would be accessible once the hostages had been recovered. ‘It was a straight-up deal, effectively a ransom, although that word could never be used in these fraught times.’
He was greeted by silence. He could hear the man at the other end of the line breathing.
‘Good night,’ said Tikoo cautiously.
‘Good night, 108,’ said Jehangir.
6 September: there was no news from the mountains. However, the New Delhi newspapers had another unsourced scoop, this time apparently emanating from the Indian intelligence agencies. Someone had intercepted a letter, allegedly from the Afghani, who was currently in the same high-security ward for terrorist prisoners in Tihar prison as Masood Azhar and Omar Sheikh. According to the newspaper reports, the letter contained an instruction to al Faran: ‘Kill the hostages. What are you waiting for?’
Could it possibly be true, Tikoo pondered, aghast. He contacted his Crime Branch team and requested that they get a look at the letter. He felt he was extremely close to reaching a deal with Jehangir, but this ‘call to kill’, said to be from a man who was universally respected by militants, could undermine everything, and possibly drench the crisis in bloodshed.
Crime Branch’s request to see the note was refused. The Kashmiri detectives were told it was being analysed by Intelligence Bureau agents in New Delhi. Without having examined it themselves, the police, Tikoo included, were inclined to be sceptical. This felt like an intelligence-agency plot, designed to destabilise al Faran. Tikoo thought hard. ‘Why stop a letter that contains an instruction to kill, and then enable its explosive contents to be known by all?’ Now that the contents of the letter had been relayed into the hills above Anantnag, its authenticity was no longer the issue: the safety of the hostages was. Would a tragedy in the mountains better suit the intelligence guys than a victory? Would Pakistan look worse if the hostages died? Of course it would. Tikoo could not stop himself. These flights of fancy would get him nowhere, but someone had to think the unthinkable. Tikoo was fighting for the lives of the four captives, but with every passing day he was becoming convinced that someone on his own side had other ideas. ‘It terrified and depressed me,’ he recalled.
7 September: still nothing from the mountains. But in New Delhi the adverse reporting continued, the newspapers releasing more supposedly secret details, this time an excerpt from a highly sensitive report said to have come from BB Cantt, the army’s 15th Corps headquarters in Srinagar, which Tikoo and his detectives could also not get hold of. It was said to reveal that in recent days an Indian Army patrol had been scouting close to where the kidnappers were thought to be holed up. In the light of this development, the newspapers said, negotiations had been abandoned altogether, in favour of ‘tactical operations’. One article concluded by revealing that camped in Srinagar alongside hostage negotiators from Scotland Yard and the FBI was a contingent of US and British special forces.
This couldn’t be worse, thought Tikoo as he ripped up the paper. He needed to work on the cash deal, but now he would have to ‘waste valuab
le time dealing with this crap’ and placating Jehangir. The worst thing they could do now, as al Faran teetered, was to threaten it with a full-scale operation by foreigners. Whoever had leaked this latest fantastical detail knew what they were doing, since not only would it spook al Faran, it would enrage the Indian Army too. Foreign forces on the ground in Kashmir undermined India’s authority in a war that was all about sovereignty. Tikoo read in the Indian Express that the head of the Northern Command, Lt. General Surinder Singh, had already tendered his resignation in light of the supposed news. Tikoo’s morale was steadied a little by an emphatic statement from New Delhi that no tactical operation run by Western governments would ever be permitted in Kashmir. ‘First there would be foreign boots, and then foreign mediators, and then New Delhi would be screwed by some deal favouring Pakistan into losing Kashmir,’ he said, recalling the army’s rationale. ‘And anyhow, probably none of this was true, but the debating of it once again undermined the talks, hacking away at the foundations of the process.’ Tikoo wondered if his deal was bust.
The following day, 8 September, the kidnappers released a statement that spoke loudly to Tikoo: ‘The government should announce the release of our jailed militants without mentioning a number.’
Since Tikoo had worn down Jehangir’s original demand from twenty-one prisoners to four, they had focused on other ideas, including cash. Tikoo was certain that in this statement, which ostensibly seemed to return to the question of prisoner releases, Jehangir was actually employing a crude code: ‘He was asking for a figure through this message, a hunch that appeared all the more likely when I received a call from Jehangir that night.’ It was the first time they had spoken in three days. Jehangir aggressively challenged Tikoo, accusing him of being unreliable. While Tikoo had promised them a corridor back to Pakistan, an Indian patrol was reported as having moved within sight of al Faran, with the US Delta Force and probably Britain’s SAS also in the area. How could they ever trust him? ‘To be honest, I could see Jehangir’s point,’ said Tikoo. ‘Everything I had said turned out the opposite.’ There was nothing else for it: he would have to try to reposition the idea of a financial guarantee that no one in this charged climate could ever call a ransom.
Despite the eavesdroppers, Tikoo blurted it out. He offered money. He needed to know how much. Now it was Jehangir’s turn to cut things short, saying he would call back the following night.
Twenty-four hours later, he was as good as his word. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, how are you?’ Tikoo replied. After a long silence, Tikoo tried once again to reach out to Sikander. If they were close to a deal, he would be much more confident dealing with a fellow Kashmiri. ‘OK, you tell me, is your commander from here or from across the border?’ Tikoo asked.
‘He is from here only,’ Jehangir replied. Tikoo followed up with a dig: ‘Aren’t you worried about harming your cause, the Movement, with this prolonged act of cruelty?’ It was a constant worry for Kashmiri militants that they risked alienating the very people they were supposedly fighting for.
Another long pause, then Jehangir replied, ‘The Movement can go to hell.’
After so many exhausting days shepherding the foreigners in the freezing mountains, concealing themselves from the security forces and attempting to negotiate with a slippery interlocutor who seemed unable or unwilling to concede anything, all ideology had bled from the equation, as far as Jehangir was concerned. ‘I was aware that this may not be how Sikander felt, but however hard I tried, I just could not get to him,’ Tikoo recalled. ‘But Jehangir had now jettisoned the prisoner releases. He had also rejected the Movement. It was all about getting this to an ending we all could stomach. I was sure of it.’
It was Tikoo’s turn to take control: ‘Call me tomorrow,’ he said. He was certain, for the first time, that they could strike a pact. ‘Look after the tourists. Good night,’ he added.
Until he had it in the bag, this had to be kept from everyone, even Saklani. But over the next few days Jehangir wriggled some more, piling on the pressure cruelly and precisely, dithering over amounts and methods, going back to prisoners and amnesties, making new threats to kill, singling out Don as the first to die. Tikoo asked what sum would end the affair quickly. Jehangir conjured an astronomical number. ‘Impossible,’ Tikoo replied. On 17 September Jehangir called back. He had a revised figure. He sounded deflated but serious: ‘One crore [ten million] rupees.’
Tikoo almost laughed out loud. ‘After all this time, al Faran was asking for only £250,000. This was an amount so small we could handle it ourselves. I mean, any one of us could sign out these funds and end it all right here and right now.’
‘We’re there,’ Tikoo said to himself as Jehangir clicked off the line. ‘We’re at the end. Everything’s going to be all right. And we’ve paid a tiny price for four lives, one that New Delhi can live with.’ He drained a celebratory glass of Bagpiper whisky and soda, thinking of the long-deserved break from Srinagar he would now be able to take with his wife. Perhaps they could head for the States, or Canada? He fancied San Diego. He did a little jig. ‘Imagine the price to the valley if this had gone to hell,’ he reflected, ‘and the hostages had been skewered in paradise. We would never recover.’ He could not bear to think about it. But the valley was saved, as were the foreigners in the mountains. The jubilant Tikoo called his driver and rode round to the Security Advisor. ‘It’s a deal!’ he gabbled. ‘We’ve done it! Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah! I have it on the table! The hostages are ours for one crore rupees.’ Saklani raised his eyebrows, and repeated the sum, incredulous. He then shot Tikoo a look of delight. ‘There is no time to go over it now,’ he said as he called his car to take him to the Governor.
Left alone, Tikoo recalled the Saturday night back in July when General Saklani had first handed him the phone. He exhaled, his whole body shaking. ‘I had been on tenterhooks for seventy-two days,’ he said.
On 18 September Tikoo was woken in the early hours by his phone trilling away in the darkness. ‘Go away. It’s too early,’ he murmured into his pillow. ‘Far too early.’ The ringing continued. Something must be wrong. ‘Damn it,’ Tikoo thought, praying that it wasn’t the slippery Jehangir calling to cancel the arrangement. He continued to ignore the ringing, and eventually it stopped. But half an hour later it started again. By then Tikoo was up anyway. After a lifetime in service, his body clock militated against lie-ins. He grabbed the receiver, to find it was a colleague from New Delhi. ‘He told me, “There’s a story on the front page of the Hindustan Times. I guess you won’t have seen it yet.” And I said, “Yes, OK, come on. Tell me.” And he said, “It says the kidnappers have abandoned their demands for prisoners.” I said, “Yes. OK. Good. That’s old news and gossip.” He said, “And it says the government has secretly agreed to pay a ransom of one crore rupees.” I said, “Holy shit. Oh the gods,” and slung the receiver across the room.’ Tikoo felt sick. He raged and spat. He might have cried. ‘It’s blown! The whole bloody shebang’s broken!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs. He had been humiliated, and Jehangir exposed as a paid mercenary.
He sat down before calling his driver and telling him to take him to Church Lane. ‘Who the hell is behind these leaks?’ he shouted as he stormed into General Saklani’s office without a thought for the usual courtesies. Saklani appeared ashen. ‘It was not the Security Advisor – the job was too dear to him. I could see it in his eyes. These leaks had come from some other place. It was disastrous. It should not have been done. Once the Hindustan Times hit the valley at 2 p.m., the whole game would be over.’
Tikoo spoke up: ‘Once this thing is out … I have nothing left to talk about.’ He could barely string a sentence together. ‘It is a full stop. I have just become irrelevant. Once this secret deal is everywhere, humiliating them, they will never trust me again. And, you know, I have wasted my time, too.’
Saklani went to tell the Governor what had happened while Tikoo left for home. By the next morning, the IG’s mind was made
up. It would not be a formal resignation, since protocol denied this, as did his ambition. ‘Look, one of my uncles is dying,’ he told Saklani. ‘I have to go to Ahmedabad on compassionate leave. I will be away five, six days, so can you kindly ask someone to take over for me?’
Later that day, Tikoo took a seat on a flight out of Srinagar. ‘The end is now foretold,’ he thought. Before leaving, he had called on the foreign negotiators to say farewell. ‘I apologised to the Brits, etc., and told them, “I am leaving this assignment, and I want you to know I am sorry.”’ But he could not reveal what had just happened. Only a small group of Indian officials had known about the cash deal – he could count their names on the fingers of one hand. All around him was evidence of a profound betrayal that reached to the summit of government, although so many pieces of the picture were missing that he could not fathom what or who lay behind it, or why anyone would have chosen this course, rather than victory, with the hostages triumphantly freed.
Rajinder Tikoo had become attached to the cause of the families, and could not shake the image of the hostages being snatched from their former lives into a new world of terror and uncertainty. ‘The problem for them all,’ he recalled, ‘was that they were just ordinary people.’ He stared out of the plane window and down at the Pir Panjal, that was now muffled by deep, fresh snow.
FIFTEEN
The Squad
Somewhere behind the high walls and barbed wire of the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Crime Branch, the old cream-and-ruby-red building set back from the snarling traffic of Srinagar’s Jehangir Chowk, lay a bulging secret file, held together with a leather binder and tied with a length of string. It began with three First Information Reports or crime logs: the initial kidnapping report raised by Jane, Cath and Julie on 5 July at Pahalgam police station; followed by another, concerning Dirk Hasert and signed by his girlfriend Anne Hennig at Chandanwari police post on 8 July; and a third, date-stamped ‘P/S Pahalgam, July 11’, which was when a Duty Inspector had finally got round to recording the abduction of Hans Christian Ostrø in Zargibal, from where the villagers had taken their time in clambering down the mountain to report the crime.