Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’

by Siddhartha Thorat

  “We are on,” he informed him of the situation on the Bangladesh border.

  “I will get my men to cordon off the area so that the Rangers can get down to business,” Javed said referring to the SRG team.

  Sanjay agreed and quickly turned his attention to the Rangers and SAG men. Javed then called in his men and informed the Chief Minister. Almost simultaneously, the F1 team got into their cars and took up positions as per the briefing earlier. Javed also asked the DCP Traffic, head of the city’s traffic police to ensure that traffic is moved away from the action zone and the buildings isolated from civilian interference. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP-Traffic), Rupesh Adhikari, was a thoroughly irritated individual. He had been ordered to stay on duty as a police-military anti-terrorist exercise was in progress in Sanjay Gandhi National Park and that he needed to be at hand. The DCP assured him that at this time of the morning, it would not be a problem.

  “Listen Rupesh, this is the real thing, could be as big as 26/11. Make sure your men understand it, okay?” Javed warned him. Rupesh was not surprised; Javed’s call at 0100 hours had convinced him something more serious than an ‘exercise’ was in progress. He was at the junction of the Eastern Express Highway and the Mahindra Factory as Javed’s Scorpio roared past with other two Jeeps on their way to the Thakur Village.

  In Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the Rangers and the SAG commandos mounted the Swaraj Mazda wagons provided by the Maharashtra police; a police escort of a gypsy and outriders took position at the front end of the convoy. Both Sukhjeet and Thapa got into an armoured jeep, a vehicle inducted into F1 after the 26/11 attack. The entourage sped across the national park and reached the main road. The pilots switched on their sirens and the vehicles zipped at top speed through the city’s deserted roads. “Never seen Mumbai streets so empty,” Sanjay shouted over the sound of sirens to Thapa. Thapa grinned and nodded back.

  The taxi was stopped by a traffic policeman, “What seems to be the trouble, driver?” asked the passenger. “VIP movement or something bigger,” answered the driver as he manoeuvred the rickety old Suzuki van away from the policeman.

  “Don’t worry; I will get you to the apartment from the other side. There is a road which passes by the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.” The passenger looked at the road block with some professional interest. He noticed a man with an M4 carbine get into one of the cars. That’s not standard-issue police weapon, he thought to himself. Adil Khan had travelled from Pune in a luxury bus. Along with another man, he had spent the entire day checking and re-checking equipment and weapons for tomorrow’s operation. As planned, he was here to drive the operation team to the farmhouse in Pune. Adil had been deployed in India a few years back. A logistics man, he had arranged for explosives used in the Pune bomb blast a couple of years back. As an illegal agent in an enemy country, he had developed strong instincts. As the driver took a detour, he paid attention to the road and everything around it. Suddenly he heard the piercing wail of police sirens. The driver pulled over as a convoy of police vehicles sped by. In an instant Adil knew that this was not a VIP convoy. As the vehicles passed him by, he had noticed that one of the vehicles was an armoured Scorpio, used by the local commando force. And he had seen that the men in the truck were wearing helmets not worn by the police. The driver was back on the road. He realised that despite the slower speed of his cab, the siren could still be heard; they were travelling in the same direction. Adil thought for a moment. What were the chances that an Indian commando unit and a special action squad of ISI were in the same five kilometre radius? None! He shook his head as he thought to himself. He had been given a mobile number to contact in case he was held up and could not reach the address. But first he had to take care of the taxi driver. “How much further?” he asked the driver as he reached into a duffel bag at his feet. It had a pistol and three grenades. He also had an AKSU, a stub-nosed Russian sub machine gun.

  As soon as the convoy neared the apartment block, the pilot vehicles peeled away and the sirens were switched off; a road block set-up by F1 allowed only the commando vehicles to go through. The Rangers quickly jumped out and rushed to their postions, the SAG to assembly point. All this was being done quietly. Simultaneously, F1 men ran up and deployed in pairs on every floor of the three buildings except the ‘target’ floor. This was to ensure that none of the civilians walked into a fire fight; at the same time, if required, they could be evacuated.

  The SAG men checked and rechecked equipment and awaited orders. Sanjay had walked into the empty flat being used as a control room. “Why didn’t you disconnect the lights?” he asked Javed. “This is Mumbai; power failure here is almost unheard of. If I pulled the plug, every uncle and aunty in this building would have come out of their house. Also our friends are watching TV; I don’t want to disturb them. We have switched off parameter and lobby lights, so your men can’t be seen.” He looked around, the advance force of Rangers and F1 men had created a small control room. Three large-screen TVs beamed in pictures from different parts of the complex. Radio contact had been established among the team and a loudspeaker was used to monitor the chatter. Thapa and Sukhjeet were coordinating with their teams and the base. A direct line had been patched through to the South Block in Delhi, where a Crisis Management Center (CMC) was in session. They could see and hear the same images that the control room could. The NSA and the Home Minister along with key staff were present. They were also monitoring the activities on Bangladesh border.

  Indo-Bangladesh Border, Operation Area: 0230 hours

  Tenzig’s men got off the chopper and took their positions for the ambush. The night was moonless and they could hear cries of wild animals in the jungle. The chopper had dropped them and taken off. Tenzig’s scouts had visual contact with the enemy and they were expected to walk into the trap in an hour. The men were ready.

  The BSF men had put a cordon and a patrol moved out to the point where the TATA 407 was expected. Contact had been established with a police Gypsy tailing the truck. Half a kilometre away, a BSF team set-up mortars to give extra support if required. In a pitched tent, the local police chief and the DIG of the BSF established a control point. A link was patched through to the CMC.

  Hamza and his men had now been walking for close to thirty minutes. The winter chill was uncomfortable but bearable, the jungle was not. It was hellish. The men had taken a break to pee and then started the march again.

  “Bastards… hurry up, this is not a college picnic…” he yelled when he saw one of the HUJI escorts lighting up and slacking in speed. He hated this behaviour.

  “How much longer?” he asked Mehboob.

  “Fifteen minutes,” came the reply.

  The scouts could hear the conversation as the column moved through the jungle.

  High above, the satellite beamed the infrared image to the CMC in Delhi.

  15

  Crisis Management Centre (CMC), South Block, New Delhi: 0230 hours

  The Prime Minister and the National Security Advisor huddled over the screens as they monitored the action along with the Home and Defence Ministers. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra was also monitoring the action from his office. An IG from the SFF was manning the command console. The Secretary-R, Director General NSG, Director General-Security, the Director General-BSF and the Army Chief watched the action.

  The Defence Minister had just apprised the PM in person about the movement of Pakistan’s 22nd Independent Artillery Brigade; the famous nuclear-armed unit of the Pakistani Army to its operational position. He was a worried man. This operation had to succeed and they could not advertise the success.

  Suddenly a voice boomed above the general radio chatter, “Action stations, action stations…we have a breach of parameter…” PM looked at the startled group. The voice was coming from the Mumbai transmitter hooked on to the loudspeaker. The IG from the SFF spoke into the transmitter.

  “Sparrow here, repeat, what is the situation.”

  Sanjay’s voice ca
me through the speakers. “We have a parameter breach; a vehicle has got through outer parameter. We have casualties. Will keep you posted.”

  The NSA looked at the DG-Security, “Have your men on the border closed in on the militants yet? Quickly… we may have little time before they are warned.”

  “Sparrow calling Tiger one, Come in Tiger one… make contact with Bogeyman ASAP … repeat… we have a situation… make contact with Bogeyman ASAP….”

  “Tiger one here Sparrow one… we got that… roger… over and out.” Tenzig’s voice came through. The DIG BSF in the control room called in the circling Dhruvs.

  Mumbai, Outer parameter, Operation area: 0245 hours

  It was a traffic policeman who noticed it first. Constable Lakshman Pawar was manning the road block to assist traffic movement. The checkpoint had two men from that fancy new commando unit. They were positioned behind a sandbag fortification. A pair of headlights was slowly bearing down on the post. Pawar squinted until he could make out the outline of a Maruti van. It was being driven at a moderate speed. He gestured at the the two Force One (F1) commandos; they nodded that they could see the vehicle. They were expecting no trouble. As far as the two men knew, the chances were more of someone coming out than going in. This was their second taxi in twenty minutes, “Bloody airport drops,” muttered Raju Mali, the constable with the F1, as he pressed the transmit button and spoke into the microphone and informed the control room, “Checkpoint six… Romeo one… taxi approaching checkpoint six. We are flagging it down.”

  His partner took position and he checked the safety catch on his M4 carbine while the traffic cop hailed down the taxi. They had sent the mollified passenger in the first taxi away by threatening to arrest him.

  Adil had tried calling the number he had been given; there was no range. He cursed the mobile company. He then realised that as they were near the national park, cell phone towers were likely to be limited. He asked the driver to pull up on the side and took out his pistol with a silencer and shot him in the back of his head.

  He pushed the driver to the passenger seat and climbed in. Adil had realised that the best way to warn them would be to create a noise and a diversion. This would allow his comrades a chance to retaliate. He put an earphone from the mobile to his ears and tried calling again. But there was no signal. He shifted the idling car into gear and started rolling. As he drove down the road, he saw a checkpoint. He put the pistol with silencer between his legs and the AKSU on the lap of the dead driver beside him. In one hand he grabbed a grenade. Trying his luck, he pressed the dial button on the phone and could hear the phone ringing at the other end. “Come on, you mother fuckers… pick the damn phone up…” he pressed his feet down on the pedal and headed in the direction of the checkpoint.

  “Hello, who is this?” Shezad’s alert voice boomed in his ears.

  “Who do you think, you dozy fuckers, Santa Claus? There are cops all around you, I am lucky I didn’t get caught… I am creating a diversion…. Break out!”

  Shezad had seen the phone and immediately realised who it was. The number had been given to him in Cherat. He had it memorised. But the words coming out of the speaker shocked him into action.

  The van slowed down at the checkpoint and stopped. The traffic cop went over to driver’s side. “You can’t go there, back up!” he spoke haughtily to the driver in the dark.

  A voice hissed back, “Listen bhenchod, don’t say anything, I have a gun… come closer.”

  The policeman could now see the metallic glint of the gun; he went closer.

  “How many men at the check post, Thulla?” Adil asked using the derogatory term for a cop in India.

  Pawar was petrified. “Two … two, what do you want?

  “Listen…” his words were cut short as the pistol coughed.

  Mali heard the thud as the cop fell to the ground. Before he could collect his wits, the van accelerated towards the post. Mali got off a shot before a grenade fell into the make shift checkpoint. Mali pressed down his transmit button as his comrade loosed off a volley of automatic fire at the van. The grenade exploded in three seconds. The last words heard from Mali’s position in the control room were, “Grenade…Sudhakar…grenade…,” as Mali tried to warn his partner who was shooting at the runaway car.

  Sanjay spoke urgently into the microphone as Javed rushed out to take charge of the situation. “Prepare for action… Prepare for action.” At his cue, Sukhjeet asked his men to prepare for the attack. The thump of the grenade and automatic fire had been heard clearly.

  “So much for well-laid plans; Javed’s men will handle the party crashers, you prepare for attack,” Sanjay directed Sukhjeet. “Thapa, get your men to tighten the parameter.”

  He turned around to Thapa, “Have your men taken positions on the target floor yet?” the look on Thapa’s face said it all.

  “Shit! Shit! All this preparation and for what!” Sanjay cursed, under his breath. Another twenty minutes and the teams would have been deployed.

  Adil’s action had taken twenty minutes out of Sanjay’s plan, moments in which the SAG commandos would have been in the lobby and would have broken down the door of the apartment in a classic door entry operation.

  The attack was now in shambles, the SAG men were still tooling up after dismounting in an assembly area and the SRG was still completing its deployment. Sanjay couldn’t help but grab a M4 Carbine from the Force 1 equipment and wear webbing with spare ammo and grenades over his jeans and shirt. He decided to be cautious and also put on a F1 bullet proof vest. No sense getting blasted by our own side, he thought. He asked a young IPS officer in command of the control station.

  Sukhjeet sent up a five man team up the stairs to make contact with the enemy. The SAG storm troopers rushed up the stairs to contain what was fast becoming a disaster.

  In the flat, Shezad handed out the weapons from the secret cabinet to everyone. He looked at the team. “We came ready to fight and win…let’s do it…Izaz and Jameel…take positions in the living room, give us cover fire…Musheef and Tariq, come with me, we will move into the next apartment and take hostages. Once we are in the next apartment, move ahead and create a killing field for anyone entering this floor.”

  It took the boys two minutes to arm themselves and close the primary plan. And then Izaz moved into position.

  At the same time as Izaz opened the door, the squad of SAG on their way up for deployment opened the staircase exit of the floor. Both sides fired on instinct, the door and their bullet proof jackets provided protection to the SAG but Izaz had no such luck and a bullet pierced into his arm and sent him sprawling across, still firing. Shezad quickly took his spot and continued firing while his men crashed down the door in the opposite apartment and moved in. The apartment was empty. The Pakistanis were surprised but did not panic. Shezad knew they had few minutes until the Indian security forces recovered from their surprise and mounted a full scale raid. He pulled pins out of two grenades and dropped them below on the ground. He followed that up with a burst of fire wanting to create panic among civilians.

  The grenades exploded harmlessly as no one was present below. Along with the bullets from the SAGs MP5s and the M4s, the grenades created chaos throughout the three towers. Lights had been disconnected by the Rangers as soon as the shooting started. As the residents opened their doors to walk out they were met by policemen and F1 men and were asked to go in and take cover.

  Below, Sanjay and Sukhjeet were putting together an attack while Thapa and his men scaled up the opposite roof tops and placed snipers and sealed off all the entrances from the complex. The team in the stairway was asked to stay put to avoid any of the raiders from shifting floors.

  Shezad had other plans. He saw that one way off the floor, via the staircase, which was blocked by the commandos, and the other was the lift which had been turned off and locked. And the third was the windows and the pipes to the floor above or below, covered from across the buildings by the snipers. Every now and then
, a bullet would thud into the outer concrete to mark their presence.

  But there was a vulnerable spot, the lift shaft. On his first day in the apartment, Shezad had made a recce of every exit point. He had eventually noted that whenever the power was switched off, for maintenance or otherwise, the lift car went to the basement floor and stopped there. He had studied the lifts in the apartment and knew that the door could be opened in an emergency from outside. The lift shaft would be their escape pod.

  But first he needed to buy time to make that escape. He asked Musheeq to cover the staircase door while he and Tariq brought up Izaz and placed him on ground. Next, they dragged out a sofa and a wooden cabinet and set up it horizontal position to cover Izaz and Musheeq, turning it into a fortification. Jameel meanwhile continued to fire randomly from different apartment windows at the opposite roof and apartments. Once the ‘fortified’ position was made in the lobby, the men dragged out the two gas cylinders, one from each apartment and placed them where they could easily be shot from the lobby.

  Then Tariq used an iron rod from the bedroom mosquito net to fashion a crowbar with which he and Jameel opened the lift door. Shezad shoved in two grenades, loaded his AK on his back and put extra magazines in a small knapsack and a flashlight around his neck. As an afterthought, he picked up the keys to the Jeep below Amin had left for them. He gave a quick hug to both Tariq and Musheeq and tousled Izaz’s hair. Once he was sure that the position could be defended for some time, he lowered himself into the lift shaft. Jameel followed him. And the door slammed shut behind them. With power off, no one would notice the doors opening and closing.

  Sukhjeet was ready for the assault. He had a team in the apartment under the floor where the terrorists were bunched up. A team had also moved on a floor above. The team above signalled that it was ready to drop down through a window and balcony into the floor below. Sukhjeet decided that he would soften the opposition up by opening three fronts and forcing them into a corner. The movement and firing pattern suggested that they had decided to make their stand in the lift lobby of the apartment floor, which was at the centre of two apartments and now they had access to two apartments. Sukhjeet would drop his men into the balconies of two apartments on either side of the lobby while the force in the stairs would rush in as the fire fight began. The study of the apartment dummy earlier had confirmed that there was no direct line of fire to the bedrooms his men intended to burst into.