Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’

by Siddhartha Thorat

  Sanjay added from a report which had come in earlier in the morning.

  “RAW has a source in Habib Bank in Lahore. He has access to accounts of a charity related to the LET, the Jammat-Ud-Dawa (JUD). He mentions a transfer of one million rupees each to families of around ten men across small cities of Pakistan around three weeks back. The money was transferred to a private account from JUD, the charity front for LET. While these are standard transactions, a million rupees is a very high amount for being distributed to individuals at one go. That either means someone has completed a major operation or is setting off on one. We don’t have record of any major operation in either Afghanistan or India which should justify release of this sort of money to so many men in a single day. We anticipate that this money is only being released once the operation has been set in motion.”

  “Maybe it’s for all the participants of a special training camp?” asked Colonel Thakur.

  “Not really. Like I said this is too large an amount. We think it’s for something special. My men are going through the reports to see if there are any indicators.”

  Sanjay closed the meeting saying, “Gentlemen, please carry on investigations on the subjects at your end and send in regular reports. We will meet again once we have enough to go further on, hopefully in a fortnight. Whatever we suspect is planned, is set to happen around 15 December. We have some time.”

  6

  Office of Military Intelligence (MI), Army Headquarters: New Delhi

  Colonel Thakur was in his office, smoking his Four Square Kings and downing cups of sweetened teas while going through a host of reports over the last six weeks. As he skimmed through Major Vijay’s incident report on the Wasim Khan encounter, he realised that the report carried a sting in its tail. It was Ankush’s description of a militant with military bearing that caught his eye. He quickly went over the report again and marked it for further action. He put a call through to the MI Colonel in the Kilo Force headquarters in Kupwara.

  “Hi Ajay, how are you? I was going over a report from your boy in 27th RR. Damn good job. I want to have a word with him over the details of the operation. Have him call me ASAP.” They had a few words and exchanged some regimental gossip before they agreed to catch up when Ajay was in Delhi next.

  A few hours later, Vijay called him, “Hello, Major Vijay here, sir”.

  “Aha! Hello Vijay, I was expecting your call. How are you?”

  “Doing fine, sir, I understand the call was about the Kupwara incident. I have the report in front of me.”

  “Vijay, where is this Ankush chap? He was wounded, I read.”

  “Ankush is in the Command hospital in Chandigarh, sir. The wound is not too bad but he was evacuated out of Srinagar to keep the bed empty for emergency as per my understanding.”

  “Good. Does Ankush have a cell phone? I am sending across orders to deploy him on temporary duty to Army Headquarters (AHQ). Will you have a word with his CO anyway? Thanks then.”

  With that arranged, Colonel Thakur went through reports from Batala area in POK over the last four weeks. There was a report of a newspaper journalist having been beaten up by some militants when he tried to take their picture as they shopped for some cell phone SIM cards and knick-knacks in the local market. The report claimed that the cub reporter was rescued by an Army officer in uniform who intervened and sent him on his way. The report was by an agent who happened to be on the street. Colonel Thakur tracked down the officer who was handling this particular informer to get an idea why this report had been filed.

  “I know, sir, it’s pretty common for the militants to throw their weight around. But the handler claimed that these guys were not the standard rookies who end up in Batala normally; they were older and seemed to be non-Kashmiris. Batala usually has a mix of young disgruntled elements from Kashmir and POK. Usually the Punjabi and Pakhtoon militants stick to camps in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad. Oh, by the way, it isn’t in the report summary sent to you, but the detailed report I filed mentions that our agent actually knows this reporter. He is from the same village, and yes, he also claims that these characters haven’t been seen around in the last three weeks or so.”

  “What did you say was this reporter’s name? Zain? And what publication does he work for … yes, please check your report. Yes, I will wait… Mirpur News is it? Thanks a million.” Thakur said as he disconnected the phone. The militants in the encounter were all from POK or Kashmir, but it seemed the ‘guests’ might not be. Someone needed to talk to that cub reporter. There were mug shots of the dead militants and maybe he could describe his assailants. Thakur picked up the phone and put a call through to an officer who ran an undercover team in Muzzafarabad. He spoke to him for a few seconds, walked across the office to his desk and explained his requirement.

  “Time is scarce,” he explained. “I will get the required authorisation from the NSA in an hour, you start the process.”

  The NSA was reluctant to use a Black Op team and blow their cover. But the MI General was persistent. “The team has been in place too long, we are going to pull them out anyway sometime this year. Why not use them once.”

  POK, Cub reporter’s house, Neelum Village, 22 November

  Mustaq Ahemad had left his home town in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, almost fifteen years back. He still remembered the day when he entered the NDA at Khadakvasala near Pune. Those memories brought a rare smile to his face. Later from the Indian Military Academy (IMA), unlike most of his course mates who joined the fighting arms, Mustaq went ahead and joined the intelligence regiment. It was at various courses that he demonstrated exemplary presence of mind and a high aptitude for espionage. Following a string of field postings, Mustaq ended up in Afghanistan and helped guide and train the Northern Alliance’s (NA) intelligence units. After the US invasion of Afghanistan, Mustaq travelled with the invading NA troops, undercover into former Taliban territory. It was here that he heard of the secret air bridge created by Pakistanis to evacuate hundreds of ISI-sponsored terrorists and ISI officers who had been fighting the Americans. The deal had been made by wily Musharraf and was supposed to be a secret. The US hoped that by doing the dictator this favour they could buy the loyalty of the Pakistanis. Mustaq investigated and sent a report back to India immediately. It was this report which eventually ended up in the international press leaving the Pakistanis and the US red-faced. Post the end of his mission in Afghanistan, using his contacts and the considerable influence Indian government wielded in the NA, Mustaq had himself placed undercover in Mirpur in POK.

  He and his team of five enforcers were a product of a false flag operation conducted through a high-level intelligence officer in the Afghan intelligence unit, National Directorate of Security (NDS or Amaniyat). Mustaq and his team’s cover story collaborated that they were on the run from Afghanistan for attempting to blow up the Indian embassy in 2008. The papers had been falsely made through a clever move which replaced identifications in documents of a former Taliban, now deceased in the NDS archives. They were allowed to run a small tourist transport business in Mirpur using money given by the ISI. Mustaq and his Afghan ‘heroes’ bought a few imported SUVs. These they rented out to Pakistani military, political establishments and occasional tourists. It was a perfect cover for roaming around much of POK. The team had carried out mostly passive intelligence tasks like tracking militant activity, positions of key militant leaders and movement of Pakistani military units in the area surrounding Mirpur. There were some ‘hot ops’ too, a couple of hits against Afghan militants hiding in POK to satisfy the senior officer in the NDS. But this was the big one that had come their way in a year or so. Mustaq wanted to make sure it would be successful. It had been two years since they had been inserted into POK and Mustaq longed to get back to his country. It was the same for the four Afghans on his team. The tension of operating deep inside a hostile territory played havoc on their minds. He had been promised that this was their last operation. He and his men would be extracted to India and he would
return to a normal military career in India. His Afghans would become Indian citizens and would be allowed to bring their families to India and live out the rest of their lives with considerable pensions.

  “There are some men here to meet you,” hollered Zaina Begum as she gestured the three officious-looking men to come into her small house and sit down.

  “Poor boy, fell off his bike in town a month back … still hurting,” she said hustling around and clearing her sewing from the small sofa and switching off the TV. A limping young man walked into the living room. He seemed to be about twenty-two years of age and didn’t seem too happy to see them. “We are from the Agency,” Mustaq mentioned as he gestured to the men with him. Like in most third world countries, if you seem like what you claim to be, no one asks for identification. Young Zain didn’t either. He had heard stories from others about visits from ‘the Agency’.

  “You had a fight with some men in Batala village a few weeks back, right? What happened?”

  “Nothing. Saw these men carrying AK-47s and thought they would make a good cover picture. Nowadays even foreign magazines pay good money for these pictures. I have taken photos many times before, of the mujahids. These guys hated being photographed, didn’t care to pose and reacted rather aggressively. Before I could say anything, they started slapping me.”

  “So I can see … did they break your leg with a slap?” smirked the guy in the corner who seemed to be fingering a gun in his waist pocket.

  “Well, uh … hmm … not really … they started with slaps, then well … progressed … you know.”

  “So then, what happened?”

  “Well, there were these three or four Army-types in uniform in the next shop… they heard my cry and then one guy, this really dashing major ordered the men away.”

  “Was he with them?”

  “I think so, they and the others left together. Also there were three others in a different uniform.”

  “What vehicles were they travelling in?”

  “Actually, there were three vehicles. The army Jeeps left first then a small Toyota truck.”

  Mustaq nodded and opened a laptop. “Can you point out the uniforms?”

  Zain looked at the screen and saw a number of pictures of models in uniforms. “The dashing guy, he was in this uniform, wearing a maroon cap… the others, their uniform is not here.”

  An SSG commando, the older man thought as he turned the laptop towards himself, loaded a few more pictures and then turned the screen back to Zain.

  “Yes, this one,” the page was titled, ‘Pakistan Air Force Commando: Special Service Wing’.

  “Can you describe the men?”

  “I can do better. Before they whacked me, I took a picture”, he smiled. “Why are you so interested?”

  Mustaq didn’t answer. He just pulled him up by the arm and took him to his room to get the camera.

  “Show me the picture.”

  Zain scrolled through the pictures in his camera and paused at one with three armed men in salwar kameez carrying AKs. Two faces could be identified. None of the men in uniform were visible in the frame.

  “Do you have the data cable for this?” He connected the camera to the laptop and downloaded the pictures. Zain noticed that the laptop had a USB internet connection. In moments the picture had been emailed to a remote mail address which was opened at a military intelligence unit in India.

  As Zain looked up from the screen, he realised that the man near the door had withdrawn his gun and was screwing on a cylinder to it. As Zain searched for the third man, he realised that he was not in the room. Just before he saw a flash before his eyes he heard a muffled shot coming from the kitchen. His mother! And then suddenly darkness enveloped Zain’s mind.

  The man in the kitchen opened the gas cylinder nozzle. He then fashioned a small charge from a bottle of kerosene and some rags and they left the house. A minute later, as their Toyota Land Cruiser roared out of the valley, they heard a blast in the background. Mustaq smiled. His last Black Operation before he returned to India.

  7

  RAW HQ Lodhi Road, New Delhi: 0900 hours

  Sanjay was thinking hard. It had taken him years to place an asset in the middle of Pakistan’s primary air base. An asset he had developed, nurtured and his first success as a professional spy. If he could get some sort of indication of the disappeared terrorists, this was his chance. He walked up to a quiet part of the roof with his pack of Red & Whites and gathered his thoughts; the cold Delhi winter breeze reminded him of Tajikistan.

  Farkhor Airbase, Tajikistan, July 2001

  The Farkhor Airbase is a military airbase located near the town of Farkhor in Tajikistan, 130 kilometres south-east of their capital, Dushanbe. In 2001, the Indian government opened a military hospital at the base to treat Afghan Northern Alliance members injured in fighting the Taliban. It was an Indian doctor who had pronounced the Lion of Panjsheer, Ahmad Shah Massoud, dead.

  Sanjay had wanted to be a spy all his life, his hero being James Bond. He got his chance in July 2001 when he was posted in Tajikistan on the Farkhor airbase as a field coordinator with the NA intelligence forces. To give him anonymity and cover, the government had posted him as a Military Intelligence Captain, uniform and all. It was here that he first encountered the so called ‘enemy’, not by shooting at Taliban, but by rescuing one of them from the tender mercies of the Tajik fighters.

  Majid Khan had been wounded and in the heat of battle been picked up and transported aboard an IAF-maintained chopper to a military hospital run by the Indian Army. While unloading the Mi8, one of the Tajiks realised that the casualty being unloaded was a Pashtun fighter. As he called out to a couple of other fighters to drag him away, Sanjay pulled out his 9mm and told him to let the man remain. The Tajik was not interested in arguing with the business end of a pistol. He shrugged and left his victim. Sanjay had two medical orderlies carry the man into surgery. In a week, the young Afghan was on his feet and Sanjay had a friend for life. Twenty-six years old, standing 5’ 6” tall and thin with a limp and a thin beard, Majid came across as a gentle figure. He talked little at first but eventually mentioned that he had been to school and had been a medical orderly in a Taliban hospital. Sanjay convinced Majid to become a medical orderly at the camp and continue his profession.

  Majid told Sanjay about his earlier life. Born and brought up on a farm a hundred kilometres east of Kabul, the Russian invasion had come and gone while his family continued to farm the fields. He attended a village school and grazed goats in the evening. He gained his basic education, enough to read and write, during his service with the Taliban. A few years back, he lost his parents to an infection that had swept through the village. Alone and with nothing else to do, he joined what seemed like a group of student revolutionaries. In a few weeks, the Talib commander decided that Majid was not exactly Rambo-material and had him moved to the ‘stretcher bearer’ team. During an operation in the north of Kabul, Majid was sent to collect wounded soldiers along with two other stretcher bearers. It was in this role that he had been shot at and wounded by the NA fighters.

  But then, on 9 September 2001, everything changed. An Al-Qaeda suicide squad assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud. As Massoud’s remains were flown into Fakhor, Majid realised, useful or not, anyone remotely connected to Taliban would quickly be facing the business end of a Tajik AK-47. He quickly explained his predicament to Sanjay. With a little coaxing, the paymaster released Masjid’s back pay and Sanjay gave him another hundred dollars. Calling in a favour with the Tajik chopper, crew, Sanjay had Majid flown to Afghanistan. Before he climbed in the chopper, Sanjay gave him a piece of paper with a number and a name.

  “If you are ever in trouble and there are Indian military or civil personnel nearby, ask them to take this to nearest Indian embassy. You will get help, good luck Majid.” Sanjay yelled over the noise of Mi8’s jets.

  Majid trekked to Kabul and found himself a job as an orderly in a hospital. In a few weeks he contacted S
anjay and thanked him for everything. When the war reached the outskirts of Kabul, Majid decided that he no longer wanted to risk being in the city. But he understood that if he tried to leave the city, the Taliban were likely to force him, at gun point if necessary, to defend the city. His hospital received many of these ‘forced’ Taliban soldiers every day. So he decided to stay in the hospital, as discretely as possible, hoping that the US airplanes would spare the building.

  On 14 November 2001, victorious NA forces swept through the city. Majid went about his work quietly, avoiding attention. It was a few months later when he saw something in an old building on Malalai Watt that reminded him of his old friend. The same flag of India that adorned Sanjays’ shoulder patch was flying in the compound. After more than eight years, the Indian embassy was back in business.

  Wondering if he could contact Sanjay from the embassy, Majid went and knocked on the huge door. The guard at the door was not interested in the story and would not let him in. Majid decided to wait outside. After waiting the entire day, he remembered that paper Sanjay had given him. He had kept it with the little treasures he had saved, a hundred dollar note and a piece of gold. He went back, copied the same on another paper and walked back to the embassy the next morning.

  He bribed the Afghan guard with a few Pakistani rupees and asked him to give it to anyone in uniform. Then he settled down to wait; it was after three hours that he was called in and taken to meet the assistant reconstruction attaché.

  “This paper says your name is Majid, is it?” Virender Sinha asked him. Majid nodded and explained how he got the number and the details. Virender was the embassy RAW internal security in charge, the foreign service designation, a cover. The paper with the code name and number had been a secret intelligence message; by punching in the digits into a special programme into the computer in his office, he was able to get the details of the issuing agent. He told a staff officer to see that Majid had something to eat, “and keep your eyes on the fellow.” He then tracked down Sanjay in India from the information and had a long discussion with him. Once Sanjay confirmed the story, the RAW officer interrogated Majid in detail about his past and this last one year in Kabul. He asked Majid to come back after a few days. Once discreet enquires confirmed the story, Majid joined the embassy as a gardener.