The Siege

by Adrian Levy

  Upstairs, Amit threw off his clothes and filled a bucket to shower. When the water finally ran clear, he dried himself off and called his family in Pune, before kneeling: ‘Thank you, God,’ he prayed, ‘for saving my life.’ There would, after all, be time for a frame of snooker, for girls and guitar lessons, to take a trip and make his mark. But first he had to sleep.

  11 a.m. – the Taj Tower

  Inside the Taj, four terrorists continued to pinball around, hurling grenades and shooting up rooms in wild acts that the Black Cats sensed were retribution for the Chambers evacuation. The commandos hoped to contain them in the Palace while they entered the Tower, which promised to be a complex and lengthy operation. There were twenty floors, usually with seventeen rooms on a floor, containing an unspecified number of guests, as well as 140 non-residential rooms – restaurants, kitchens and stores. Only one electronic master key could be found, which would slow down access.

  As guests had been told to stay in their rooms in a coordinated ring-round, Kudiyadi feared it was going to be difficult to talk people out. The Black Cats mostly spoke no English and doors locked from the inside would have to be blown open. From experience, Major Unnikrishnan knew that it took an average of five minutes to clear a room, assuming there was no contact. This meant they required an unfeasible thirty-six man-hours to empty the Tower, which would take them to Saturday evening, even before they turned to the six-storey maze of the Palace wing with its 264 guest rooms. Given how late they had come to the city, and how few boots they had on the ground, with only a small transporter plane found for them that could carry just 120 men and their kit, this was untenable. ‘Everything needs to be done in double-time,’ the Brigadier warned.

  Sisodia and Major Unnikrishnan went over the drill. They would start from the top of the Tower, with gravity on their side, the Major advising his men to avoid silhouetting in doorways and windows, reminding them that a blasted door was the area of greatest vulnerability. Two commandos would stand on opposite sides of the threshold, ready to move, using a manoeuvre known as ‘the buttonhook’ that required them to enter, cross and turn back on themselves, dominating the space.

  They could not use the same procedure in every room as repetition got men killed. So did talking. Apart from pre-assigned codewords to indicate the presence of guns, hand grenades or other weapons, they would rely on hand signals. Finally, in a building as tall as the Tower, there was the critical issue of resupply. Clearance was resource-thirsty and the NSG were severely limited. They needed to use the charges, grenades and ammunition sparingly.

  12 p.m. – the Palace wing

  With the Tower operation under way, Major Unnikrishnan came down to the lobby, where police and hotel staff watched the Maharashtra police chief talking on TV. All hostages inside the Taj ‘have been rescued’, he announced. ‘Depends on your definition,’ Major Unnikrishnan said, shaking his head, as he turned his attention to the Palace. Before clearance, he wanted to do a sweep, orientating the men, rescuing straggling guests, gathering intelligence on the whereabouts of the gunmen.

  He would lead one team into the north wing and up to the still-burning sixth floor, while a second team would do the same in the south wing. As the two teams set off, the Major warned that he would be the first down, drawing a dry laugh from the men gathered around him. They expected nothing less of him, as Unnikrishnan had emerged as a leader back in his training days, when he had been part of Oscar Squadron, known as ‘The Olympians’, their motto ‘Faster, higher, and stronger’. Commissioned in 1999 into the 7 Bihar Regiment, he had been deployed on three tours of Kashmir, and two stints at Siachen, the glacier straddling India and Pakistan that is the highest battlefield in the world. In Manesar, he had dealt with his abilities with modesty and humour, withholding his real profession from social networking sites, where he described his work as ‘non-productive human resources’. It was a smart play on the old joke: join the armed forces, meet lots of interesting people – and kill them.

  By early evening on 27 November, the Major was first down, but the team in the south wing had become snagged on the fourth floor. They radioed through ‘contact’ to the colonel on the command post, and sounded out of shape. After spotting several figures scurry into room 472, they had blasted the door, only to find a mattress against it, absorbing the explosion. As they had attempted to enter, they were then caught out by gunmen rushing out with a guest in front of them, deployed as a human shield. Before they could regroup, a grenade had chopped into three of their team, who had to be dragged back down to the lobby by the others.

  9 p.m. – the Tower lobby

  While Major Unnikrishnan assisted the medics, the north-wing team were debriefed at the command post. On the sixth floor they had broken into Sabina Saikia’s suite, finding the lounge destroyed, but the bedroom barely touched. ‘There was no one inside,’ a commando insisted. Sabina had gone. Next door, they had discovered a disturbing scene, three bodies in the bathroom: a woman and two children. It was Karambir Kang’s family, who, as he had feared, had succumbed to the fire.

  Someone had to find Sabina’s husband, Shantanu Saikia, who had arrived from Delhi at 8 a.m., travelling with Nikhil, her brother. Shantanu, who was already in mourning, was dismayed by the news. He had heard nothing from Sabina since 1.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, when he had made the agonizing decision to say goodbye. Nikhil was also floored. How could his sister have escaped? Until he could get inside and see for himself, he needed to probe every eventuality and headed out into the city to trawl the morgues in case she was one of the unidentified dead.

  Outside the Taj, the police sought out Karambir Kang. He silently took in the news about Neeti and the boys, before walking down to the sea to call his mother. He broke down. ‘Don’t cry now,’ she said from thousands of miles away. ‘Wait till I come there and cry in my lap.’ Karambir could not wait that long. He had to pick himself up right now, for the sake of everyone else who was still waiting for news. They were counting on him, he told himself. He could still make a difference.

  Ratan Tata, the Taj’s owner, found him. ‘Please take time to grieve,’ he insisted, fearing that the towering manager would crumble. Karambir shook his head. ‘It’s important that I don’t run away,’ he said. ‘I come from an army background. You know? There’s a certain way you talk and think: discipline, duty and responsibility.’ They both gazed up at the burning Taj, Karambir murmuring that if he quit now, so would his staff who had also lost friends and family. Tata understood. Karambir was an exemplar. But the fire that had consumed his place of work had also destroyed his family and his home. In truth, as another day came to an end in the besieged city, Karambir Kang had nothing left – not even photographs – and nowhere to go.

  In the dead of the second night, with the lobby lit by emergency lights, the Taj hotel looked like a sunken hulk being salvaged by divers. Sitting in the long shadows at the Black Cats’ command post, Brigadier Sisodia took in updates. The Tower clearance was moving more swiftly than he could have hoped, with most of the rooms already emptied and secured. There had been some misunderstandings, a contretemps with one room of guests eavesdropped talking in Arabic on a mobile phone, who in the highly charged atmosphere were briefly mistaken for an Al-Qaeda cell. Otherwise the Black Cats had worked effectively, winning back an entire day, which meant the focus could soon switch to the Palace, where, twenty-eight hours into the siege, four gunmen continued to roam unhindered.

  Elsewhere in the city, the terrorists’ stranglehold was easing. Although both the Taj gunmen’s phones were out of action, the Anti-Terrorist Squad’s technical section were still listening to a handset being used inside the Trident–Oberoi, where thirty-five guests and staff had been killed, and the Black Cats had cornered two gunmen on the eighteenth floor.

  One tape – just in – caught a gunman, identified as Fahadullah (Qahafa the Bull’s nephew), talking to his handler in Karachi.

  Thursday, 27 November 2008, 11.45 p.m. – the Trident–Ober
oi hotel, Nariman Point

  The recording began with a tirade of gunfire, before a priestly voice came on the line: ‘How’s it going, Brother Fahadullah?’

  A pause. ‘Brother Abdul Rehman [“Chhota”] has died,’ Fahadullah, the gunman, reported quietly. ‘Praise God.’ The Oberoi operation was unspooling.

  ‘Oh, really?’ the handler said almost casually. ‘Is he nearby?’ He seemed impassive and cold. The ATS thought it sounded like a practised tone, similar to a hospice worker letting a patient go.

  ‘Yes. He’s next to me. May God accept his martyrdom. His room is on fire. They are showing it on the TV. I’m sitting in the bathroom.’ The ATS imagined the handler searching for those images on satellite TV. Then gunfire drowned out the line. Fahadullah was trapped.

  When the shooting paused, the handler got to the point: ‘You mustn’t let them arrest you, remember that.’ News was out that Ajmal Kasab had been caught alive. They could not afford another mistake.

  Fahadullah replied: ‘God willing. God willing.’ Then he rang off.

  Minutes later the handler called again: ‘Fahadullah, my brother.’ There was no answer. ‘Can’t you just get out there and fight?’ He was urging him to sacrifice his life. ‘Throw a grenade and try to get out.’

  But after more than forty-eight hours of fighting, Fahadullah was exhausted. ‘I have run out of grenades.’ He sounded pained.

  ‘Be brave, brother. Don’t panic. For your mission to end successfully you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven.’

  ‘God willing,’ he mumbled. Was he crying? Fahadullah appeared terrified.

  The handler chivvied him on. ‘May God help you. Fight bravely, and put your phone in your pocket, but leave it on.’ When the moment came, Qahafa wanted to be sure. The sound became muffled and then a deluge of rounds drowned out everything.

  ‘Fahadullah?’ the handler called. ‘Fahadullah?’

  There was no answer.

  Friday, 28 November 2008, 2 a.m. – Taj Palace

  Sisodia got the call: the Trident–Oberoi was under Black Cat control. But moments later another call reminded him that the gunmen inside the Taj were as dangerous as ever.

  The desperate mother of Florence Martis had contacted the police Control Room in Crawford Market, with news that both her daughter and husband were missing inside the hotel. Florence had been stranded somewhere in the Palace wing since Wednesday night and no one had seen Faustine since he had slipped back inside the hotel in the early hours of Thursday morning. Roshan, a former Data Centre operator, who was keeping the family up to date, had recently rung through with the news that the gunmen had found Florence’s hiding place.

  Major Unnikrishnan volunteered to extricate the stranded Data Centre worker. He took two six-man teams and climbed the Grand Staircase, passing the bust of the hotel’s founder, Jamsetji Tata. As they reached the first-floor landing, coming level with the Sea Lounge, a figure flashed by, an AK-47 braced in one hand, spraying rounds on to the Black Cats’ position, tossing a grenade as he tracked out of sight, with spumes of gunfire channelling in on three sides from the rest of the gunman’s team. The commandos had walked into a trap and as the blast wave hit them, Unnikrishnan rolled sideways, shrapnel narrowly missing him, but catching a teammate in the legs. It was Sunil Yadav, a man whom the Major had trained and billeted with.

  Flattening themselves against the banisters, as the firing intensified, the Black Cats wondered if the Data Centre worker Florence was a lure. Had she been captured and forced to reel them in? With one man exposed and screaming in pain, the Major signalled for the others to concentrate fire on the doorways to the Crystal Room and Ballroom, while he tried to retrieve Yadav.

  His fist raised, he prepped the teams. ‘Three, two and one.’ The Major crashed down on the injured man’s webbing and latched on. The men behind grabbed Unnikrishnan’s legs, and dragged both men down the stairs. When it was clear that Yadav was out of danger, the Major signalled that he was going to press on, moving into the space created by their split firing positions. On his knees, he released short controlled bursts to the left and the right, before barrelling through the door of the Palm Lounge. Thinking fast, he knew it gave him access to the Ballroom, from where he could work his way around to the Crystal Room, flanking the gunmen, while his men kept up the pressure.

  Down below, the Black Cats waited for further instructions. Nothing came. Then the Major’s radio clicked. He sounded breathless. ‘Don’t come,’ he rasped. The radio clicked again. ‘No comms.’ The others bipped their walkie-talkies to say they understood. ‘Do not contact,’ he whispered.

  A nerve-wracking silence followed. What was Unnikrishnan doing? Was he so close to the gunmen that voices on the radio would give away his position? The men resumed firing, pounding the Crystal Room and the banqueting floor doorways, fearing for their leader, as the rear team used the cover to reverse down the staircase with the injured Yadav.

  After half an hour, the silence proved too much for them. They signalled to the command post that Major Unnikrishnan might not be coming out and surged up the staircase pumping rounds furiously, forcing the gunmen back in the direction of the Wasabi restaurant. The Black Cats paused. There was no sign of the Major but looking around as the smoke coiled they realized that they had finally taken the landing. They radioed the news down to the command post, where Brigadier Sisodia passed it to the NSG chief, Jyoti Dutt. The Major was missing, but they had forced the gunmen into a corner, boxing them into the Japanese restaurant. The Taj operation finally had some momentum behind it – but at a price.

  7 a.m. – the Palm Lounge

  As morning light filtered into the Palm Lounge, a Black Cat team moved on the doors, slipping inside, while more men circled around the back. The room was charred beyond recognition, wooden beams glowing and smoking. Plaster had come away from the ceiling. The ash was so deep it felt like they were walking through snow. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the stinging smoke, and then they saw the body. From the webbing and weaponry they knew immediately it was Major Unnikrishnan. Rolling him over, his injuries told some of the story. He had pushed through into the Palm Lounge, thinking the fire was coming from behind him, when in fact two more gunmen had lain in wait inside, to his right and left. He had died with his radio in his hand.

  They called it in: ‘Death confirmed.’ Jyoti Dutt asked to talk to the men holding the landing, worried that the Black Cats’ aura of invulnerability had been pricked and that the advance would falter. Brigadier Sisodia thought that was the difference between the police and the army. Chief Dutt had come from the former, and worried about the men’s ability to shoulder the loss. The Brigadier, seconded from the Sikh Regiment, told him: ‘These men will not even register the Major’s passing until the hotel is ours.’ The commandos needed to move in on the Wasabi right now, he said. They also needed to work out who and where Florence Martis was, as elsewhere in the city hostages were being executed.

  8.52 a.m. – Chabad House

  At 7 a.m., twenty-two Black Cats had rappelled from an Mi-17 helicopter on to the roof of Chabad House, from where an Indian maid had earlier escaped with the two-year-old son of the rabbi and his wife. As far as the authorities knew, the couple continued to be held hostage inside, alongside four guests, although confusing and shocking intercepts had been recorded of the Karachi handlers ordering their men to kill everyone.

  A short while after the rappel, intense gunfire could be heard inside the centre, and at 8.52 a.m. the Anti-Terrorist Squad netted another chunk of conversation that they relayed to the Taj command post, the caller marked as ‘BW’, for Brother Wasi, one of the handlers stationed in Karachi control. He was talking to Akasha, one half of team two, which was inside Chabad House.

  Akasha panted, obviously exhausted. BW put himself in his man’s shoes: ‘You have run out of water. You’re tired. They know it too. They are hoping to arrest you, once you are weak from hunger and thirst.’ BW was hoping that Akasha would
draw his own conclusions and volunteer to go down fighting.

  Akasha understood what he was being told: ‘Today is Friday so we should finish it today.’ The jummah or Day of Assembly, as it is known, was filled with public prayer and it was the perfect time for a sacrifice.

  BW suggested Akasha begin his final assault right away: ‘Shoot, shoot.’ The instruction worked as the line was drowned out by gunfire.

  Akasha came back on the line. ‘They have opened fire. They have opened fire. Umar, take cover. Take cover! They are firing into our room.’ The line broke up and then a weakened voice came back. ‘I have been shot. I have been shot. Pray for me.’

  Listening in at the precise moment the Chabad siege collapsed, with the unseen handlers listening in too, the ATS were mesmerized.

  BW still had to be sure: ‘Where are you hit?’

  Akasha replied: ‘One in my arm. One in my leg.’

  BW: ‘God protect you. Did you manage to hit any of their guys?’

  Akasha was struggling: ‘We got one commando. Pray that God will accept my martyrdom.’

  A few minutes later the police received confirmation. After thirty-six hours, Akasha and Umar, the Chabad House gunmen, had been killed. There was bad news too. A Black Cat, Gajender Singh, had been killed, as had all the Jewish hostages. Reports suggested they had been sadistically tortured and sexually assaulted, with their genitals mutilated. A phrase rang out from an earlier transcript. ‘Remember,’ one handler had told a gunman, ‘a captive Jew is worth fifty non-Jewish ones.’