Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’ (10 page)

“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

S
anjay 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 Sanjay 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.

Two months later, Majid met Sanjay again when he came down to meet a certain Tajik officer who was commanding the
new Afghan forces in the area. It was during this meeting that the RAW officer mentioned that Majid could be more useful than a gardener. He explained to him that with his background as a Taliban fighter, he could go back into Pakistan and get a job at a military base. Majid replied that he would not betray Afghanistan, but for Pakistan, there was no love lost. Two weeks later, an officer from a special training and assessment wing flew down to assess Majid’s grasping power and aptitude. After that, things moved quickly. Majid was flown in an ARC aircraft back to India. He underwent a course in secret communication techniques, unarmed combat, aircraft and equipment recognition, enemy uniforms, formation recognition, basic English, etc. He also was trained as a cook so that he had a trade that could be useful to his employer. He was also given a cover story to explain away the time he spent working in the Indian Embassy and India.

To ensure his loyalty, Sanjay was kept in constant touch with him. After 18 months in a camp protected by SFF commandos in Chakrata, Majid completed his training.

In early 2004, Majid went back to Afghanistan with new papers describing him as a cook along with forged references and other papers. A RAW source had him placed with a contractor who catered to the civilian canteen in Sarghoda Airbase, Pakistan. Since 2005, Majid began passing on intelligence regarding base activities. As Sanjay took over new responsibilities, a new agent was now handling Majid. Sanjay called in the officer, Rajat, “He is well settled in and been submitting routine reports and details of officers posted and squadron strengths, nothing earth shattering,” Rajat reported.

“Well, that is going to change in a hurry. We need him to confirm something,” Verma explained the presence of twenty odd LET fighters shifted to the airbase. “We want him to find
out if they were there. If they were, what were they doing there, and if possible get a detailed description of these guys.”

“I will contact him and brief you tomorrow afternoon… usually we contact him once in a while to avoid a pattern.”

RAW HQ, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 25 November

The next day at 1400 hours, Rajat walked into the office. “We’ve hit pay dirt … Majid confirms that there were 15-odd jihadi-looking people on the base for over a week about a month back. He remembers because they ate in his canteen. The other thing he mentioned was that there was a mock-up of buildings made of canvas in an isolated section of the base, near the SSW unit. He thinks that’s where these guys were staying in that section.”

“So can he describe these characters?”

“Not really, there is no way he can do that. One, he says that he never had a reason to pay attention to them, and second it’s been over a month now.”