by Mukul Deva
‘Should we head back then?’
‘We cannot go back to Chakoti,’ Wahid Ali said grimly. ‘The Indians will be expecting us to do that. Chakoti is the closest of our posts so they will know we must have started out from there. By now they will definitely have another ambush waiting for us on that route. We have to loop around the ambush site and head for the camp we were going to.’
‘How much further is it?’
‘About an hour and a half…maybe a little more if I am not able to maintain the pace.’
‘Do you think you will be able to manage such a long walk with that wound?’ Iqbal asked. ‘And what about him?’ Iqbal jerked his thumb at Omar who was now moving only when they prodded him and collapsed to the ground when they stopped for a minute.
‘There is no choice.’ Wahid Ali seemed determined enough. But as they stumbled and groped their way through the forest he seemed to lose focus. He halted frequently and his breathing grew heavier. The blood loss was telling on him. Once or twice he cried out sharply in pain. The sound rang out in the stillness of the rapidly receding night. Iqbal froze when that happened; his body bracing itself for the barrage of gunfire that he was sure would shoot out at them from the darkness around in response to the sound.
‘Is it getting worse? You want to rest a while?’ Iqbal asked after the instructor stumbled and fell yet again.
‘No!’ The instructor leveraged himself up slowly. ‘We have to keep moving. If I stop now I will not be able to get moving again.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘Don’t worry…I can do this...I’ve seen worse.’ He was speaking more to convince himself than Iqbal. ‘See that peak there?’ He pointed to a slightly crooked peak towering over them. ‘We have to take the saddle to the right of it. The path runs almost along the base. Just in case…’ his voice faltered and then trailed off. Then he lifted himself up slowly and they stumbled after him again.
Dawn had started to break when they staggered upon the small camp in the thick pine-laden forest just north of the Indian village of Hari. No one who had not been here before could possibly have known of its existence. A light snow began to fall just as they approached. The sentry who emerged like a ghost from the tree-laden shadows was expecting them. He seemed to recognize the instructor because he waved him on into the small clearing where the camp was sited.
‘Only three of you?’ he asked.
The instructor nodded. He was too far gone to be able to talk.
‘That firing last night?’ The sentry raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Was that your party?’
Wahid Ali didn’t answer. He had collapsed in a ragged heap to the ground.
SALIM
It was about two weeks after that spectacular quarterly review meeting on India Strategy that Salim received a curt phone call from the General’s aide. ‘The President has requested your presence at the Central Command Headquarters at 1100 hours tomorrow.’ Despite the way it was worded there was nothing remotely resembling a request in the order; these simple summons had led to many more important men than him vanishing without trace.
The next day Salim arrived outside the Presidential office dressed in full military regalia. Excluding the two heavily-armed guards who watched him from under hooded eyes, the plush office was vacant. He was still contemplating the implications inherent in this when the door flew open and the General strode in. ‘Salim!’ The General’s tone was full of jovial bluster. ‘Come…’ The General gestured to the plush leather sofas arrayed on one side of the huge office. Two hours later, armed with explicit instructions and a very free hand, Salim’s life in the ISI had hit the fast track.
It was at Salim’s initiative that Pakistan began to focus attention on Nepal and Bangladesh. They proved ideal for getting at India at virtually no cost to Pakistan. ‘Isn’t it strange,’ Salim mused to his Adjutant in a rare moment of introspection, ‘how easy it is to foment hatred and violence?‘
The passage of years proved how right Salim had been in the strategy he’d selected. The Indians were bled white for over two decades in a low-intensity, constantly simmering conflict that cost them millions of rupees and tied down thousands of troops and security forces in the Kashmir Valley. The Pakistanis spent scarcely a dime; simply using the poppy fields of Afghanistan to fund their war.
Salim’s mind swept over the years, his thoughts dwelling briefly on all the plans of his that had drawn Indian blood. Even when I saw our boys being thrown back from the heights of Kargil and retreating shamefully I did not feel let down because I knew we had made the Indians pay for it. I know how many body bags they shipped down from Kargil. Each Indian dead body is one more victory for us.
Salim had ensured that the ISI exploited every possible opportunity to breed hatred, discontent and violence in India. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Ram Janam Bhoomi, the general elections, the Mandal riots, the Godhara train burning. Even so, not many were aware of just how deeply the ISI had sunk its tentacles into every aspect of Indian society and polity. It was Salim who had almost single-handedly choreographed the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu, forcing the damn Indians to hand over a few diehard loyalists to the Taliban. He had even ensured the buggers paid in hard currency to free the hostages. It was his ingenuity and deviousness that helped extricate scores of Pakistani soldiers, para-militaries and irregulars from Herat and Kandahar from right under the noses of the American forces that had closed in on them when they’d attacked Afghanistan after 9/11.
‘Can you imagine, those fools have the temerity to codename the Afghan invasion Operation Infinite Justice? Don’t they know that it is only Allah who metes out infinite justice?’ the General had said to Salim. As far as he was concerned, the American invasion of Afghanistan spelt the end of years of Pakistani domination of Afghanistan’s internal affairs. The exceedingly radical and simple-minded Taliban never even realized how totally it had always been manipulated by the ISI; those of its members who had shown the slightest signs of intelligence, more often than not, finding themselves dead.
‘What else can we expect from those idiots, sir?’ Salim guessed what was going on in his General’s mind and nodded sympathetically.
‘Right, especially from that idiot who sits at the helm of America’s affairs. I really wonder how he managed to get elected twice. Inshahallah, we shall see the downfall of this arrogant white Satan soon. See what those slimy buggers have done to us now.’ The General tossed a sheaf of newspapers towards him. The news of the nuclear agreement coming up for discussion between India and America hogged the headlines in most of them.
Salim did not even bother to pick them up. ‘The Indians have been working on this for years now.’
‘True. That kafir President will try to ensure the agreement goes through before the American elections due at the end of next year. That way, no matter who wins, he will go down in history as the one who put Indo–American relations on the fast track.’
‘More than that, he desperately needs something to divert the attention of his public from the American body bags that are being flown in from Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, it is also no great secret that the Americans are always salivating for a bigger share of the huge Indian market.’
‘The bastards will do anything to ingratiate themselves with these damn kafirs,’ the General said harshly.
‘Undoubtedly,’ Salim nodded. ‘Why else are they running around offering the F-16s and F-18s to the Indians? They are dying to do that despite the fact that they denied us the same planes because of the nuclear tests we conducted. They are treacherous bastards. The American dogs will jeopardize Pakistan’s security without giving it a second thought. This is nothing new for them. They used our Afghan brothers and us against the Russians when they needed to do so. Then they tossed us aside like used toilet paper when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan. They are now happily using Pakistan to bring Afghanistan to heel since there is no way in hell they could do it on their own.’
‘Who cares!’ Salim retorted. ‘It is not as though we are doing anything much beyond feeding their propaganda machine. Our top brass is savvy enough to throw them the middling, meaningless foot soldier once in a while so that they can trumpet to the world that they have taken out another Al-Qaida commander and are winning their war on terror. That keeps the fools happy and as long as they are happy the dollars won’t stop. It is a foregone conclusion that as long as Sheikh Sahib is not found the dollars will keep flowing in.’
The Americans had no clue that the man they were spending millions of dollars trying to find was safe and sound, right under their very noses. On any given day Salim could have strolled down to the safe house the ISI had placed him in and have tea with him. In fact, very often that is precisely what Salim did. He had tremendous respect for the man’s dedication to the holy cause, not to mention the lethal forces and incredible wealth that lay at his beck and call.
There was another longish pause as random thoughts skewered through the minds of both men. Yet again it was the General who broke the silence.‘In fact, I often wish we could teach them a nice lesson about what happens to people who stab their friends in the back. Unfortunately, this is not the time…the diplomatic consequences and economic fallout would be too high. We need those dollars right now if we have to salvage our economy and get back on our feet.’ There was another pause. The General gave Salim a long look. ‘Of course, there would be no such problems with punishing the Indian bastards.’
When the meeting ended a few minutes later and Salim strode out of the office his leader’s unspoken command lay clear in his mind. He had only three months to retire and in this short period of time he had to do something that would make the General proud of him. Salim knew the time had come to deliver one last major strike against the kafirs.
No matter what the political rhetoric, everyone in the ISI knew that the hunting season on India was always open. In any case, their pussyfooting leadership, full of eunuchs, just begged to be hit. The General would be thrilled; so long as the strike could not be traced back to them overtly. Plausible deniability. That was the name of the game. Whether we do it or not is not the issue, as long as we are not seen to be doing it. That was the mantra of the times they lived in. Salim laughed at the thought.
‘I am going to be taking direct charge of every aspect of the operation,’ Salim told Maulana Fazlur Rehman when they met to discuss the final plans in August 2005. Rehman did not seem very pleased but then what choice did he really have? He and his terror clansmen were almost totally at the mercy of the ISI.
On his part, Salim was beyond caring what anyone else thought about it. He had seen these dim-witted jihadis mess up one mission after another with their ham-handed approach and was quite fed up with it all. They are motivated and ready to die, but they lack the perception and creativity to actually strike a lethal blow. This time I am going to ensure that things go exactly as planned. This is my final mission; there cannot be any mess-up.
Salim carefully picked each man himself and took personal charge of every little detail; he wanted his final mission to be a memorable one, a fitting end to an eventful career. As Salim went over the minutiae of the operation for the hundredth time in his mind he wished he had more time to plan and execute the hit. Unfortunately, the day of the strike was predetermined. If the damage had to be both to Indian morale and material, there could be no better day for it.
IQBAL
December 2004, New Delhi, India.
It was the feeling that something was missing from his life that had made Iqbal first accompany his uncle Rashid to the mosque. Six months had passed since Iqbal had moved to Delhi from Lucknow to join a diploma course in engineering and work with his uncle in his spare parts shop. But the impersonal monotony of life in the metro had begun to get to him. ‘You don’t seem very happy these days, son,’ Rashid mamu said to him one day. His uncle was a perceptive man, quite sensitive to the feelings of others.
‘I’m fine, mamu jaan,’ Iqbal replied with a polite smile. But the truth is that he wasn’t. He missed his friends and family back home. The day scholars in the engineering college he had enrolled at had all grown up in Delhi and had their own cliques. The out-of-towners were all in the hostel and stuck together because of that. The long evenings he spent tinkering in his uncle’s shop were becoming less the pursuit of an enjoyable hobby and more a refuge from loneliness.
Rashid waved his hand expansively at the shop – ‘I could never have imagined that my little shop would turn into such a goldmine. All the credit goes to you of course, my boy. But you need a break. Maybe I can introduce you to some of the neighbourhood boys at the mosque?’
‘Yes, mamu,’ Iqbal said, not wanting to offend his uncle.
The only religious experience that Iqbal had hitherto been exposed to had been the morning chapel service at La Martiniere, his school in Lucknow. Despite the tranquil beauty of the school chapel and the soothing cadence of the hymns, the service had never been an exceptionally moving experience for him. Iqbal only attended because it was mandatory. In any case, Iqbal always made sure he blended in as much as possible. He was only too aware of the fact that he would never have been admitted to such a fancy school had his father not been a staff member; something the rich brats in his class seldom let him forget.
Unlike the strangely sterile chapel service, Iqbal’s first visit to the mosque left him disturbed and confused. The serene, softly-lit, incense-laden school chapel contrasted starkly with the densely-packed mosque that smelt of sweat and toil – a smell Iqbal associated with the workers in the garage. And the angry talk of harsh realities that the Maulavi gave later was so unlike the namby-pamby teachings of his school. He thought of the soft, well-fed, self-absorbed boys at school and college and was surprised at the bitterness he suddenly felt.
Iqbal was not sure why he returned to the mosque again, but return he did. On his second visit to the mosque Iqbal found himself listening closely to the Maulavi’s sermon. Something in the man’s words touched his own barely articulated feelings of persecution. He was completely engrossed in the sermon the Maulavi gave that day. Possibly that is why Maulavi Sahib noticed him and stopped him as he was leaving the mosque. ‘You are new around here, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. I have just moved here from Lucknow.’ Iqbal lied instinctively, knowing that the Maulavi would not be pleased to learn that Iqbal had not been coming for prayers all these days. ‘I stay with my uncle, Rashid.’
‘And what do you do, young man?’
‘I am studying engineering, sir.’
‘Good, good. We need educated people. Engineers, mechanics, doctors, surgeons – all men of science and all believers.’ He patted Iqbal on his shoulder. ‘May Allah watch over you.’ The Maulavi was old and frail looking but his eyes were straight and clear and his demeanour conveyed unmistakable strength. There was something deeply mesmerizing in the way he communicated his ideas to the congregation. Iqbal felt flattered that he had singled him out.
Thereafter it became customary for Iqbal to go to the mosque every day and to stay on after the evening prayers to spend time with the Maulavi. Iqbal was not the only one whom Maulavi Sahib spoke to. There were always a few young men hanging around, most of them in their late teens. Almost all of them were starting their careers, pursuing a higher education or doing some technical course. Barring the rare exception, most of these young men were small-towners who had recently moved to Delhi. This struck none of them as strange; in fact their rootlessness bound them together. The youths in the group changed constantly. Every once in a while one or two of them would abruptly stop coming and literally vanish from the city; then other young men would take their place.
It was perhaps three months after Iqbal bec
ame a part of this group that the Maulavi took him aside. ‘Why don’t you stay on after the others leave today, I want to have a talk with you.’
Iqbal instinctively sensed that something cataclysmic was going to happen to him. Maybe, deep down, Iqbal even knew what it was because he was not in the least surprised when the Maulavi began to talk. That was the day the frail man with the steely eyes recruited Iqbal into the dreaded militant organization – the Lashkar-e-Toiba. ‘The kafirs have never accepted us…not then and not now. We have always been outsiders for them. They tried to wipe us out at the time of Partition.’ There was such hatred in the old man’s words that for a moment Iqbal forgot he was a man of god. ‘What they are doing today is even worse. They are trying to subjugate our very spirit. Remember, as a devout Muslim it is your fundamental duty to stand up and fight when your religion and community are threatened.’
Two weeks later when Iqbal was about to leave after the evening prayers, the Maulavi beckoned to him again. ‘Meet me in my room in fifteen minutes.‘ Iqbal slowly made his way to the room just behind the mosque where the Maulavi lived. When Iqbal reached the room there were two other young men waiting by the locked door. Both were about his age. In fact, Iqbal even knew one of them since he, Omar, a pale skinny guy, one of the few originally from Delhi, was also one of the regulars who stayed back after evening prayers every day.
When the Maulavi Sahib arrived a short while later they all stood up to greet him. He unlocked his room, ushered them in and went straight to a small metal box placed in a corner to empty the contents of his pockets. Iqbal saw several bundles of crisp currency-notes stashed in the box.
The three boys spent a couple of hours with the Maulavi that evening and he spoke about the huge struggle that Islam was facing to overthrow the dominance of the kafir and how they could all be a part of the victorious army that would stride forth in the footsteps of the Prophet (Peace be upon Him). ‘I think all three of you are ready to stand up and be counted.’ The Maulavi gave them an assessing look: ‘It is time you three went for higher training…’
