by Mukul Deva
Their sudden disappearance would have surely led to another round of extensive debate if nature had not stepped in the way.
It was the eighth of October 2005. The twelve recruits were returning from the firing range when suddenly the earth began to move. At first Iqbal thought he was feeling giddy but then there was a deafening roar and the whole world started to buck and sway, shiver and tear up. Just as suddenly as it had started the frenzied shaking stopped and a harsh silence slammed down on the mountains. By the time he understood what was happening the earthquake was over. There was no time to be afraid; that came later.
The trainees ran up to the crest of the last hill overlooking the camp; the horrific sight below took their breath away.
The town of Muzaffarabad had been totalled. It was as if a herd of marauding elephants had trampled it to the ground. Even as they watched, weakened walls and buildings crumpled to the ground in softly billowing clouds of dust and debris. From the distance one could not hear the screams but it was not hard to imagine the death and destruction that had decimated the town.
The camp remained miraculously intact barring the hut that stored the arms and ammunition and the communications hut where the radio set was installed. The other huts had weathered the quake reasonably well, being temporary and lightweight structures.
The next two days were like a surreal nightmare; Fazlur Rehman was kind enough to immediately volunteer the services of the trainees for rescue work. It was obvious that Rehman’s decision was more to do with propaganda than any feeling of goodwill. ‘Double the guard on the camp,’ Rehman ordered the senior instructor after sending out the trainees to Muzaffarabad for rescue work. ‘Make sure no one gets at our supplies.’
Screams of anguish and pain met Iqbal as he and his colleagues walked into the devastated town. Bodies and body parts were everywhere, bleeding bewildered people stumbled about with dazed expressions looking for those they had lost, little kids wounded and traumatized with no one left to console them wailed into the wilderness. Iqbal knew he would carry the memories of this horrific nightmare to his grave.
‘Allah is merciful!’ Omar whispered as they started digging through the rubble. ‘Had it been snowing who knows how many more would have died?’
Iqbal himself was witness to five huge heaps of mangled bodies that they recovered from the debris on the first day. By evening their minds and bodies had been pushed to the threshold. Stomachs and throats ached horribly from the constant retching and throwing up.
When darkness finally forced rescue efforts to a halt, the tired beaten men who stumbled back to camp that night had nothing in common with the enthusiastic young boys in search of adventure and a cause to believe in. The thrill and excitement of bombs and beliefs receded into the gaunt futility of death. If this is how life can be brought to a sudden wrenching halt then what is the point of it all? What meaning does the jihad have…does anything have?
The next morning again found them headed for the devastated town, sombrely shouldering their picks and shovels. The pieces of cloth tied around their mouths and noses did not smother the stink of death. They split up in pairs as they entered the town and reluctantly began to make their way into the desolation. Iqbal and Omar came up to the ruins of a small settlement. The silence was deathly. Suddenly Iqbal heard a dull thud and a muffled cry. Quickening his pace he walked around the collapsed wall of the hut.
A plump, thickset woman in her early forties lay in the rubble of what was once her home. Iqbal’s heart lurched when he saw her. It was as if Hamida, his mother, was lying before him. The same kindly face, the same hennaed hair. The right side of her face was badly bloodied. The lower half of her body was buried in the debris. A thick wooden log lying across her body pinned her down. Iqbal could see her straining to raise the log and free herself.
Frantic hope flooded the woman’s face when she saw Iqbal. ‘My daughter is still buried under,’ she flailed a hand. ‘Please get her out of there. She is terrified of the dark.’ The women’s voice broke: ‘Please, son …please…my little girl.’
‘Don’t worry, Ammi.’ The word eluded Iqbal’s control; he looked away. ‘We will, but let us get you out first.’
‘Please!’ she begged. ‘Get her out first. She has been calling out to me and crying the whole night.’ The woman’s voice broke into a crazed sob. ‘I have not heard her crying for sometime now,’ she whispered after a long pause. ‘She must be hurt.’ There was a dogged hope in her words; words that resolutely denied the other reason for her daughter’s silence.
‘We will help you first.’ Raising his voice Iqbal hailed Omar. Together the two of them managed to move the log away. And then he wished they hadn’t. The lower half of the woman was pulp. Blood surged out as the pressure of the log lifted away. ‘How is she still alive?’ Omar whispered harshly. He too was struggling to retain control over himself.
‘Zeenat…my daughter…’ the woman seemed oblivious to her own pain. Or maybe the hurt in her heart overrode everything else. ‘Please get her out.’
She pointed again towards the huge heap in the centre of the hut.
Omar and Iqbal exchanged a long look. Then they both went to work with their shovels. Minutes bled away. As did life from the lady lying on the hard cold floor of the place that had once been her home. She watched them with an unblinking gaze; the hope in her eyes glazing over into death as Iqbal and Omar pulled out the lifeless corpse of her daughter from the rubble. It was as though she had willed herself to stay alive only for her daughter.
Iqbal could not bring himself to abandon the dead woman and her teenage daughter. ‘I want to bury them,’ he finally told Omar.
‘Let’s get them to the…to where the other bodies are…’
‘No, Omar, I want to bury them here…where they lived…’ He looked away. ‘She looks like my mother,’ he finally whispered softly…reluctantly.
The two men began to dig. Iqbal felt his head explode with pain as he gently lowered the woman who reminded him of his mother into the shallow grave they had dug. He then placed her beloved daughter in her arms.
Religion? War? Guns? Bombs? Jihad? Was there any point to it all? How much more futile can Man make life?
Iqbal wished he could close his eyes and then open them and find himself home with his family. By the side of his near and dear ones to whom his life was precious. Nature kills so ruthlessly, without a thought to the suffering she inflicts. Nature had made her callousness clear. To her life was of little consequence.
Iqbal stood among the debris of the countless dead and thought of the training he had undergone. To kill without compassion in the interest of a larger cause. Maybe Nature’s cause is larger than mine, Iqbal thought with a twisted smile.
They finally managed to get the camp radio set fixed on the morning of the third day after the quake. Minutes later, the radio operator came rushing out to call Fazlur Rehman. Immediately the trainees were rounded up by the instructors and assembled in the centre of the camp. ‘Get ready to move out at once,’ the Maulana told them. ‘We move to another campsite within the hour.’
‘Apparently some international aid agencies are reaching the area,’ Abu Khan whispered. ‘It would not be politically correct for the training camp to be seen by any one of them.’
No, obviously it would not, Iqbal thought to himself. Considering the fact that Pakistan expends so much breath and energy denying that any such training camps exist in their country.
‘Who cares as long as we can get out of here,’ he whispered back as they hurried off to gather their stuff.
The move to the new camp was a painful, time-consuming exercise. Most of the roads and tracks had been badly damaged, some totally severed. The new campsite was located just a dozen miles from the Pakistan Army post at Chakoti along the LOC. They only reached there on the evening of the second day. The site was on coarse and jagged turf with no habitation of any kind close by. The settling in took up the three remaining weeks of their training perio
d as everything in the camp had to be built from scratch. By now, all twelve recruits were looking forward to the end of training. This, despite the fact that they spent a lot of time worrying about the reality that awaited them on their return to India.
Iqbal knew that the stress of their move back across the LOC overshadowed every other thought in all the trainees’ minds. Despite the danger of the trip Iqbal looked forward to going back home. He vowed to focus only on that and gloss over the gauntlet of cold steel, hot lead, barbed wires and mines that lay between home and him.
1600 hours, 29 October 2005, Malviya Nagar Bus Stop, New Delhi.
The two men comprising Team One of the Lashkar caught the bus plying on route 535 that was headed for Rajender Nagar via the Shivaji Stadium. They were both carrying almost identical-sized, but differently coloured canvas bags. Both bags had been lined with cardboard to give them a distinct shape. Both men handled their bags with extreme caution.
Malviya Nagar being a popular and cheap market, the bus was overflowing and no one paid any heed to either of the men. In any case, people were carrying all kinds of baggage. When the ticket-collector came by both men bought their tickets separately.
It took almost an hour for the bus to reach Shivaji Stadium, their final destination. Both men got off on the road and walked into the crowded terminus. Pausing briefly at the entrance the older man nodded to the youngster. ‘Go with God,’ he said softly.
The youngster nodded. ‘Inshahallah fateh hamari hogi…I will see you later.’ Then he turned and walked away towards the right of the bus station. The older man watched him for a while then turned and headed into the bus station in the opposite direction.
*
1708 hours, 29 October 2005, Shivaji Stadium Bus Terminus, New Delhi.
Despite the fact that it was a Saturday and quite a few offices were closed in view of the impending Diwali and Eid festivals, there was a huge crowd at the bus station. Everyone was rushing to get home before nightfall. Almost every bus leaving the terminus was filled over capacity. The two men moved slowly through the crowd; they were on the look-out for buses that started from the station.
‘Generally all buses refuel before they start a fresh run.’ The older man remembered their agent-handler briefing them.
‘That means they will have filled fuel tanks…good for us,’ one of the Lashkar had commented with a smirk. ‘The more the diesel the bigger the impact of the explosion, right?’
The handler had given the man a contemplative look. ‘Good thinking, except for the fact that for quite some time now all public transport vehicles in Delhi run on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). The older type of buses have six CNG tanks, two on either side of the bus towards the rear section and two fitted right at the back of the bus. All of them are fitted on the underside. See…’ He had pointed out the positions of the CNG cylinders on the photograph of a bus he was holding up. ‘The new buses are longer…they have a higher capacity and these ones have eight CNG tanks fitted on them. Here.’ He pointed them out on the same photograph. ‘There are three on either side and two at the rear. The long distance ones have three at the rear, but you’re not likely to encounter these at any intra-city bus station. You must try to target the bigger buses and try to place the bag under any of these seats.’ He had pulled out another photograph of the inside of a bus and pointed out some seats. ‘Remember, you must try for the aisle seats. They are the ones where you have the maximum chances of detonating the CNG cylinders…not the window seats.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with the window seats?’ The same man who had spoken earlier asked again; he was trying to retrieve some lost face and feel a little less stupid.
‘A large part of the blast gets wasted on the outer walls. In any case you want the explosion right in the thick of the crowd…not to the side.’
The older of the two men, the one who had moved to the right flank of the bus station, saw a new model Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus heading his way. It was empty and seemed about to be getting ready for a fresh run. He was right. The bus scheduled to ply on route number 505 pulled into an empty slot a few feet away from him and people started boarding it even before the bus conductor got on.
The older man was one of the first to get onto the bus. He made his way unerringly to the seat directly above the CNG tanks fitted on the left side of the centre of the bus. It was one of the seats recommended by the agent-handler and also the one closest to the exit door. Despite the fact that the entire seat was empty the man took the aisle seat. Before sitting down he carefully eased his bag under the seat, taking care to push it as far out of sight as he could.
Within minutes the bus had filled up. Soon all seats were taken and the aisle was packed with standing passengers. As if on cue the driver and bus conductor hopped on. Almost instantly he heard the familiar thumping sound on the side of the bus and the loud, ‘chalo, chalo…ticket, ticket…’ as the conductor gave the driver the all-clear. The bus juddered to a start as the driver gunned the engine and with a loud meshing of gears began to edge it out of the heavily-packed terminus.
Barely had the bus begun to move when the terrorist casually leaned forward. Reaching down, his fingers found the side of the bag and located the small lever recessed in a cup that shielded it from accidentally being pressed. He pressed the lever till his fingers registered a faint but distinct click. He waited for a few seconds then he abruptly got up and muttering vague apologies pushed his way down the aisle to the rear exit. He managed to get off just as the bus was pulling out of the terminus, before it had picked up speed.
The middle-aged man who had been standing in the aisle near him eagerly grabbed the newly-vacated seat. He felt as tired as he looked. His rumpled clothing betrayed the long sleepless night and hectic day he had spent at the hospital waiting for his wife to give birth to their second child. She had finally done so a few hours ago and was resting comfortably with her newborn son nestled beside her when he left the hospital. Now he was on his way home to see how their ten-year-old firstborn was faring on her own. He blessed the man who had vacated his seat not knowing that he had just ensured his newborn son would never get to know his father.
It was precisely seventeen minutes past five when the bus left the terminus carrying its lethal cargo and over fifty passengers blissfully unaware of the ugly death they were hurtling toward. From now on till the time the bomb finally exploded the bus would stop at least eleven times. Some lucky people would get off. Some unlucky ones would get on.
The man who had instigated their death walked calmly towards the main road outside the bus station. He crossed the road and went up to the first autorickshaw in the queue outside. ‘Nai Dilli railway station chaloge?’ he asked him and climbed in when the man nodded. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry. My train is due to leave in twenty-five minutes.’
‘Don’t worry, sahib. I will get you there,’ the enthusiastic, beardless youth replied with a wide grin. He swerved his autorickshaw out of the bus station with one hand pressed firmly on the horn and joined the shrill cacophony of Delhi traffic. The man sitting in the back held tightly on to the metal rail in front of his seat as they careened through the traffic. ‘Hey, ease up, will you. You don’t just have to get me there, you have to get me there alive.’
He was well out of the station when shouts of confusion were heard from the other side of the bus terminus.
Things were not going well for his younger teammate.
The younger Lashkar man had also spotted a bus coming into the station barely a few minutes after the older man had sited his target. ‘Thank God!’ he mumbled to himself as he hurried to board it. ‘Here goes.’
Now that he was alone his bravado had deserted him. Despite all the training, briefing and rehearsals he was deeply nervous. He tried to dissipate his anxiety by talking to himself; a coping behaviour amateurs routinely use to deal with combat stress. Hefting his bag he headed for the bus.
The bus scheduled to run on route 982 was headed fo
r Model Town. There was a huge crowd waiting to board it when it pulled into its allocated slot at 1715 hours. Due to the sheer press of human beings trying to get on the bus the young terrorist took a while to get on board. By the time he finally managed, there were just a couple of seats left. He rushed forward, squeezed into the first vacant aisle seat and pushed his bag under it. To his surprise there was already something under the seat and the bag he was trying to push in jutted out. ‘Shit!’
He looked around for another seat, but they had all been taken. Left with no alternative he tried to push his bag in further under the seat and get it out of sight when his co-passenger nudged him gently. ‘Bhaisahib, please be careful, there is glassware in my bag. Gift items, you see.’ The man sitting on the window seat gave an apologetic smile, ‘If you push too hard something in my bag might break.’
His co-passenger had barely finished speaking when the bus engine revved to a start and the bus got ready to commence its journey. That is when the young inexperienced terror merchant made his first mistake. He should have simply taken his bag, left the bus and tried again on any one of the other buses that were moving out of the station at regular intervals. Instead, the young man reached down, armed the timer device of the bomb, and getting up hurriedly tried to disembark. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ he shouted as he began to push his way down the crowded aisle. ‘I need to get off, excuse me.’
The man who had been worried about his glassware was staring mindlessly out of the window. He heard him vaguely and turned around out of idle curiosity. He saw the man pushing his way towards the door. He happened to look down and saw the bag still under the seat. ‘Hey! You! Bhaisahib, you have forgotten your bag.’
