Ref : rediff.com
‘Initially the attack was planned during Ramzan’
At this point of time it was also important for the Mumbai police to question Kasab about the other terrorists who were part of one of the most daring terror attacks on Mumbai.
Kasab finally surrendered to the persistent questioning about the other eight terrorists and blurted out the details about them. The police already had details of Ismail Khan, who was with Kasab and was shot dead in the encounter.
‘One is Abu Rehman. He is around twenty-five years. His eyes are brown. I think he is wearing a red shirt. Also “Yeshu” is written on his cap.’
‘Yeshu?’
‘Yeshu, yeshu.’
‘You mean Christ?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you are all Muslims?’
‘Yes. But you see, you have to look like them, to look like them he was wearing the cap.’
‘Okay. Continue.’
‘Abu Rehman is from Multan city. He had more Kalashan magazines on him than any of us. The second man is Abu Fahad. He must be around twenty-eight years. He is slightly taller than me. He is from district Okara.’
‘Tell me about the others.’
‘Then there is Abu Rehman Bada (elder). He is also from Multan. Then Abu Ali from Okara district. Then Abu Soheb from Sialkot. And Abu Umer from Faisalabad.’
‘What about the remaining two?’
‘The other two are Abu Umar from Faisalabad and Abu Aakasha who is from Multan.’
‘Where is your bag that you brought with you?’
‘My bag is lying on the terrace of the Cama Hospital. I left it there.’
‘What was there in your bag?’
‘Kalashan.’
‘AK-47?’
‘Yes. One pistol. Two magazines for the pistol. Three double magazines of AK-47. Each magazine carries thirty bullets. So, in all 180 AK-47 bullets. The pistol magazine had seven bullets each. Eight hand grenades. Two hand grenades were of plastic cover. Three were big, of Arges make. Badaam, kishmish (almonds, raisins). Mineral water.’
‘Badaam, kishmish, pista?’
‘No, only badaam and kishmish, together weighing not more than half a kilogram.’
‘How many hand grenades did you use?’
‘Just two. The others fell out of my bag. Ismail must have used more grenades. He was leading. I was giving him cover. Ismail was in charge of this operation. He was the senior-most. Woh hamse pehle se jamaat me hai. (He was in the association before all of us.)’
‘Where did you assemble the Kalashnikov?’
‘No, it was already assembled. I just took it out of the bag and removed the safety pin.’
‘Around what time did you reach Mumbai?’
‘At around 8.15 pm we got off the dinghy and landed near a fishermen colony. We were told to launch the attack between seven and eleven in the evening. Zaki chacha had told us that if we somehow land in Mumbai late in the night, then to postpone it to the next day. And if we had landed early morning, then to start it by 11 am.’
‘Where would you all have met after the operation?’ ‘Milne wale nahi they. Marne wale they. (We were not going to meet anywhere. We were supposed to die.)’
‘Tell me about the ship you sailed in from Pakistan.’
‘Arms and ammunition were already stored on the ship. We just boarded it on November 22 and after a few hours of sailing we got into the Indian launch.’
‘Who owned the Pakistani ship?’ ‘Zaki chacha.’ ‘What was written on the ship?’
‘Husseini, Al-Husseini. Then we got into an Indian launch. When we were only some distance off the Mumbai coast, at around 7 pm, we downed a speedboat, an inflatable one, and got into it and landed in Mumbai.’
‘Who was driving the speedboat?’
‘Ismail. You see, woh hamara amir tha (He was our leader). We first got off and hailed a taxi and came to CST. The others must have gotten off after us.’
‘Where is the CD of the footage of the CST station?’
‘It’s in Lakhvi chacha’s laptop.
Agar koi banda ho na jo unki field me ghus jaye to bahut maloomaat ikhatha kar sakta hai (If some guy infiltrates their group he can get a lot of information).’
‘Can you take us there?’
‘Yes, I can take you there, provided you give me enough security cover. Zaki can be beaten in his game by his own men.’
‘Are you also linked up with Jaish-e-Mohammed?’
‘No. Jaish-e-Mohammed doosri tanzeem hai (is another movement). We are Ahle-Hadis. Aur woh sala Deobandi hai (And those rascals are Deobandis).’
‘What date was fixed for this attack?’
‘Earlier we were told in Pakistan that we would do this during Ramzan. Then I don’t know what happened. It was put off. We were not told the reasons. Then as I said we sailed out on November 22. But no date was fixed. We did not know how many days, four, five or seven, it would take in the waters before landing in Mumbai. But we were told to take care of the timing before we began the attack. If we had landed early morning then we were supposed to start the attack by eleven in the morning and if we arrived in the afternoon, or say evening, then between 7 and 11 pm.’
It is almost four in the morning. Ghadge has had enough of Kasab. He gestures towards the cameraman. The camera stops rolling. Kasab takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
Intercepting the terrorists’ conversations
Vijay Singh (name changed due to security reasons), thirty-eight, standing just under five-feet-eight with dense black hair, well-oiled and slicked to the side much like a schoolboy. Despite having a thick moustache, it is the youthfulness of his eyes that dominates his face.He could be mistaken for a professional in the corporate world, a young IT professional perhaps — which is in fact what he intended before he became an inspector with the Maharashtra police.
The last few years of his posting with the Mumbai ATS, though, had hardly given him an occasion to wear his khaki threads — as a key member of the technical section of the ATS.
Although he did not have a degree in computer technology, with his technical bent of mind and aided by the formal training provided by the ATS, Singh had become an expert in cyber and electronic intelligence gathering. Singh loved his job: intercepting phone calls, hacking into email addresses or social networking profiles of computer-savvy terrorists, collecting cyber intelligence on terror modules.
However, lately things had been tough for him and for that matter all of ATS, particularly its chief Hemant Karkare. But this evening, the evening of 26 November, was different. After a long gloomy period, the smile had returned on Singh’s face.
Tonight he wanted to celebrate, in his own inimitable style, by feasting on pav bhaji and milkshake at one of his favourite food joints behind the Byculla railway station.
He had just ordered one more masala pav and some faluda when his boss, Hemant Karkare called on his cellphone (Karkare spoke directly to all inspectors, assistant inspectors and sub-inspectors posted at the ATS).
‘You call eating pav bhaji and faluda partying? Keep Friday evening free and I will show you what a real party is,’ said Karkare bursting into laughter.
It had been a while since Singh had heard his chief this relaxed and cheerful. Singh was delighted that he had done his bit in bringing the smile back on Karkare’s face.
The same afternoon a Mumbai court had granted the ATS three more days of police custody for Dayanand Pandey, prime accused in the Malegaon terror attack, the case that had led to the arrest of almost a dozen Hindu radicals accused of carrying out a bomb blast in Malegaon in rural Maharashtra.
The evidence produced by the ATS left the court with little choice than to extend Pandey’s police custody. The ATS had shown the judge a video clip wherein Pandey and his accomplices could be seen plotting the terror attack.
The video clip was shot by Pandey using the webcam of his laptop (Pandey had this queer habit of recording meetings and telephonic conversations held with co-conspirators and storing them on his laptop).
It was Singh and his colleagues in the technical section who, after two weeks of rummaging through the data on Pandey’s laptop, had retrieved the video clip.
The audio and video evidence was now expected to demolish the disparaging campaign kick-started by the Hindu right-wing parties, accusing the Mumbai ATS of being anti-Hindu and victimising saffron activists without any evidence.
The discovery of the video had changed everything: incontrovertible and clinching, it was going to steal the thunder of its detractors.
A few minutes after Singh spoke to Karkare he got a phone call from his friend informing him about the firing at the Oberoi hotel. His pav bhaji half-eaten, Singh rushed towards the Oberoi.
As he parked his car on the road opposite the hotel he saw smoke billowing out of the upper lobby of the Oberoi; then a few foreigners, screaming and pleading for help, came running out of the hotel.
A few minutes later there was an ear-splitting explosion. Another blast followed — lesser in decibel volume — perhaps that of a grenade, but loud enough to send people scurrying for cover. Singh decided to call up Karkare but the latter disconnected the call.
A few minutes later Additional CP Parambir Singh of the ATS called Singh and asked him to rush to the ATS office and get cracking with other staff members at the technical room. The time was 10.50 pm.
In less than fifteen minutes Singh walked into the technical room of the ATS, equipped with modern gadgets, high-end computers and advanced technology for intercepting phone calls and electronic communication.
Assisted by three more inspectors and half-a-dozen police constables, all technically trained, Singh started coordinating with different cellphone service providers, scanning their international gateways for any suspicious calls, concentrating on the calls originating or ending in the localities surrounding the Taj hotel, the Oberoi hotel and Colaba.
But there were thousands and thousands of telephone calls passing through the international gateway and also the cellphone towers in the area around Colaba and Nariman Point.
The ATS staff sucked out a few conversations from the air — whispery voices speaking Arabic or some other Middle Eastern language — but soon they were found to be of tourists or businessmen, all above suspicion.
More calls were taken on ‘listening’ but they too turned out to be clean. Soon doubts started creeping into Singh’s mind. Maybe the terrorists were not using telephones.
Maybe they were not communicating at all. But the technical staff of the ATS had to stay on the job. ATS chief Hemant Karkare and the second-most senior officer, Parambir Singh, were both out in the field, in the middle of operations.
A small TV set kept in a corner was telecasting the unfolding carnage live. Pictures of blood, bodies, burning hotel rooms, fire, smoke, injured people were being aired in rapid succession.
‘Set the bedsheets and carpets on fire’
At around midnight the news flashed that Hemant Karkare along with a few other senior police officials had been seriously injured in an exchange of fire with the terrorists near Cama Hospital.A few seconds later the news flashed that Karkare had been shifted to JJ Hospital and his condition was critical. Singh felt his blood freezing. For Singh and the other inspectors Karkare was more than just a boss; he was their mentor, a father figure, the patriarch of the ATS family.
An eye on the breaking news section of the TV screen, Singh and his colleagues kept toiling for the next one hour, without much luck. Dozens of calls were put under observation but none had anything suspicious.
Then at about 1 am the ATS received a phone call from the IB. The IB had managed to find three cellphone numbers that were being used by the terrorists at the time. The agency passed on these numbers to the ATS which in turn immediately put them under observation. After the first breakthrough there was no looking back for the ATS technical staff.
They found out that these three numbers were receiving phone calls from the number 00-120-1253-1824 which turned out to be a virtual number allotted by an international VoIP provider, in short, known as net telephony.
Thereafter, all the calls made by this number to India or received from India were put on interception. Soon the virtual number flashed on the screen of Singh’s computer. It was making a call on an Indian cell number whose then current location was the Taj hotel. The time was 1.05 am.
Terrorist: Hello.
Handler: Salaam ailekum.
Terrorist: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler: Yaar, tumhara kamra 360 ya 361 number jo hai woh pata lag gaya in logon ko, kya camera laga hai? (Your room, 360 or 361, they have come to know about it. Is there a camera?)
[The conversation continues as recorded in the Taj Operation section, till the handler asks them to put the bed-sheets, etc, on fire.]
Terrorist: Lekin baaki kamre na band hain; hamare paas ek hi kamra hai. Agar idhar aag laga di to kidhar jaayenge? (But the other rooms are closed; we have only one room. If we set this on fire, where will we go?)
Handler: Achha aur kamre nahi khul rahe hain. (Oh, so the other rooms are not opening.)
Terrorist: Na ji. (No sir.)
Handler: To na gali mein ja ke kaalin mein aag laga do. Aag lagane ke kaam mein der nahi karni hai. (Then go and put the carpets in the corridor on fire. We cannot delay setting the place on fire.)
Terrorist: Inshallah. (Allah willing.)
Handler: Aur jab mein phone karoon to attend karna. (And attend the phone when I call.)
[The call disconnects.]
It was the first call between the terrorists and their managers that the technical staff had intercepted. The handler was keen to be in control of the situation. It was now clear to Singh that though the carnage, the mayhem was being carried out in Mumbai, the director, the puppeteer, the invisible hand was in some safe haven, monitoring the TV, and planning the next move, like a football coach or an army general.
The conspiracy had been orchestrated to the last detail. The Indian intelligence and investigative agencies had their own version of 9/11 to contend with.
The terrorists holed up in the Taj, the Oberoi and the Chabad House soon stopped using their own phones (the Indian SIM cards which they had brought with them) and started using the cellphones of their hostages. But as they kept switching over to different cell numbers, the ATS too kept trailing these calls, putting the new numbers under surveillance.
‘ATS chief Hemant Karkare shaheed’
The phone number 00-120-1253-1824 again flashes on Singh’s computer screen. A cellphone in the Taj hotel rings.Terrorist: Salaam ailekum.
Handler: Wailekum as-salaam. Aag lag rahi hai ki nahi? (Is the fire on yet?)
Terrorist: Bas kapde ikatthe kar rahe hain. (We are just collecting the cloth.)
Handler: Jaldi laga do. Aur launch ka kya kiya tha? (Light it quickly. And what did you do with the launch?)
Terrorist: Bas aise hi chhod di thi (We had just left it like that).
Handler: Kyun? Woh valve nahi kholi thi pani bharne waaste? (Why? Did you not open that valve to let the water in?)
Terrorist: Nahi, woh kholi nahi jaldi jaldi mein, kaam kharab ho gaya tha. (No, we couldn’t do it in a hurry, some things went wrong.)
Handler: Kya kaam kharab ho gaya tha? (What had gone wrong?)
Terrorist: Woh jis jagah utarna tha na wahan mauje bahut zabardast lag rahi thi aur udhar ek kashti bhi aa gayi thi. Saare bole navy hai, navy hai, to jaldi jaldi doosri boat mein utre; samaan utara. Ismailbhai ka satellite bhi wahin rah gaya. (A powerful tide had risen where we were to get off and another boat had also come there. Everyone said it’s the Indian Navy, so we quickly got onto another boat with the baggage. Brother Ismail’s satellite phone also got left there.) [The call ends.]
The Cuffe Parade police station had taken a speedboat into possession that was found drifting near the fishermen colony at Badhwar Park a little earlier that night. It was not the large motorboat the terrorists were referring to.
Singh immediately passed on this piece of information — the fact that the terrorists had come by sea and had abandoned a launch on the high sea, though on the phone the Taj terrorist did not mention where they had abandoned it nor did he specify what kind of a launch it was — to senior officers. Singh and his colleagues tried to intercept as many calls made by terrorists as they could, recording all the conversations as they would soon form critical evidence.
At around 1.20 am the news broke on TV: ‘ATS chief Hemant Karkare shaheed.’ For a few moments it seemed time had stopped. A stunned silence enveloped the room. Frozen to their seats, they all kept staring at the TV. Singh in a late reaction picked up the phone and called up Karkare’s driver. ‘Saab khatam ho gaya hai,’ said the driver, confirming the news. A glacial rush flowed through his veins. He was hoping Karkare’s injuries were not serious. Hoping he would survive. But no. It was over. Tears started rolling down his eyes. For Singh and his colleagues in the ATS, the death of Karkare signalled the end of an era. Karkare, who was being maligned by Hindu radical organisations, and accused of appeasing Indian Muslims, was killed by a bunch of Islamist terrorists sent allegedly from across the border. When alive, Karkare had often said that terror had no religion. His death exemplified his credo.
Seconds after Singh had put the phone down, the number 00-120-1253-1824 again blipped on his computer screen. Singh picked up the headphones, though his mind was numb, his eyes bleary, his senses stunned; despair and defeat writ large on his face. The time was 1.25 am.
After exchanging some details about starting the fire in the hotel with bed-sheets and mattresses, the handler informed the terrorists about the scenario in Mumbai.
Handler: Mahaul bahut achha bana hai. Poore shahar mein tabahi machi hai. Dhai sau se zyada log zakhmi hue hain. Terah-chaudhah jagah firing ho rahi hai, to pareshan mat hona. Allah aapke saath hai. Achha ek commissioner bhi maara gaya hai, media kah rahi hai. Achha sun, ATS ka chief bhi maara gaya hai. (A conducive environment has been created. The whole city is under destruction. More than 250 people have been injured. There is firing in thirteen-fourteen places, so don’t worry. Allah is with you. One commissioner has been killed, the media is reporting. And listen, the ATS chief has also been killed.)
Terrorist: Achha. Lo, Umer aur Ali aa gaye hain. (Ok, Umer and Ali have returned).
[Another handler comes on the line and inside the Taj hotel the terrorist called Umer takes over the phone.]
Handler 2: Umer, salaam ailekum.
Umer: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler 2: Achha, ghabrane wali koi baat nahi hai. Allah ke fazal se jo Bombay mein operation karne wala chief hai na, woh mara gaya hai; abhi thodi der pehle. (Ok, there is no need to panic. By Allah’s grace, the chief who ran operations in Bombay has been killed, just a little while back.)
Umer: Kaun maara gaya hai? (Who has been killed?)
Handler 2: Chief maara gaya hai Bombay ka; commissioner mara gaya Bombay ka. Bahut saare log zakhmi hain, mar rahe hai. Poore shahar mein firing ho rahi hai, aag lagi hui hai. Allah ne aapse bahut achha kaam liya hai. (The chief of Bombay and a commissioner have been killed. Many people are injured, many are dying. Firing is on throughout the city; there is fire at many places. Allah has extracted very good work from you).
‘There are ministers in the hotel, find them’
The call ended at 1.47 a.m. As Singh listened to the call, the terrorists shared the news of Hemant Karkare’s death. For them, the death of the ATS chief, who they knew as someone who ran operations against terrorists, was a big victory.
At around 2 am a deputy director of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), Subodh Jaiswal joined the ATS technical staff. Together, they put to use all their technical know-how to intercept the communication between the terrorists.
The terrorists were speaking in Punjabi Urdu. The Mumbai ATS only had one officer, Parambir Singh, who knew the language well. But he was camping at the Oberoi, coordinating the police action there.
Jaiswal’s arrival at the ATS office gave the technical staff the much-needed moral boost. Until a few months back Jaiswal was serving as an additional commissioner in the Mumbai ATS and knew all of them well.
Being from Punjab, Jaiswal was also well versed with the language and was able to catch the idiom the terrorists were using. For the next two days, along with the ATS staff, Jaiswal intercepted and recorded over six-and-a-half hours of telephonic conversation between the terrorists and their handlers.
Hundreds of miles away from the Byculla based headquarters of the Mumbai ATS, the operations room of the IB situated in a sprawling complex at Sardar Patel Marg in Delhi was buzzing with activity.
Parallel to the interceptions being made by the Mumbai ATS, the IB was doing its own interceptions. The three Indian cell numbers which the terrorists had first used after landing in Mumbai were already under the IB’s watch. Ironically, these numbers had been provided to the LeT activists by undercover security personnel who had managed to infiltrate the ranks of the LeT in India.
The LeT operatives in India had sent these numbers to their masters in Pakistan. The Indian intelligence agencies believed that since these numbers were under observation they would know in advance what the terrorists were up to. But the ten terrorists switched on these numbers only after landing at Badhwar Park a little after 8.15 pm. By then it was too late.
Time: 2.48 am, Taj Mahal Hotel
Terrorist: Salaam ailekum.
Handler: Wailekum as-salaam. Achha tumhare hotel mein wazir hai teen — kisi kamre mein teen wazir hain aur ek cabinet secretary hai. Jo saari cabinet ka secretary nahi hota, woh bhi hain tumhare hotel mein. (Listen, there are three ministers in your hotel — in some room — and one cabinet secretary).
Terrorist: Oye, oye, oye! Badi khush-khabri sunai hai (Oh, that’s great news!)
Handler: Yeh teen-chaar bande dhoond lo, fir jo marzi manwa lo India se. (Find out these three-four men, then you can make India agree to anything).
Terrorist: Inshallah, bas dua karo Allah se. (Allah willing, just pray to Allah.)
Handler: Aur grenade feko. Bahar shayad navy aa gayi hai. Khidki se fire karo aur grenade feko. (Throw grenades. Probably there is Indian Navy outside. Fire and throw grenades from the window.)
[The phone call ends.]
‘Initially the attack was planned during Ramzan’
At this point of time it was also important for the Mumbai police to question Kasab about the other terrorists who were part of one of the most daring terror attacks on Mumbai.
Kasab finally surrendered to the persistent questioning about the other eight terrorists and blurted out the details about them. The police already had details of Ismail Khan, who was with Kasab and was shot dead in the encounter.
‘One is Abu Rehman. He is around twenty-five years. His eyes are brown. I think he is wearing a red shirt. Also “Yeshu” is written on his cap.’
‘Yeshu?’
‘Yeshu, yeshu.’
‘You mean Christ?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you are all Muslims?’
‘Yes. But you see, you have to look like them, to look like them he was wearing the cap.’
‘Okay. Continue.’
‘Abu Rehman is from Multan city. He had more Kalashan magazines on him than any of us. The second man is Abu Fahad. He must be around twenty-eight years. He is slightly taller than me. He is from district Okara.’
‘Tell me about the others.’
‘Then there is Abu Rehman Bada (elder). He is also from Multan. Then Abu Ali from Okara district. Then Abu Soheb from Sialkot. And Abu Umer from Faisalabad.’
‘What about the remaining two?’
‘The other two are Abu Umar from Faisalabad and Abu Aakasha who is from Multan.’
‘Where is your bag that you brought with you?’
‘My bag is lying on the terrace of the Cama Hospital. I left it there.’
‘What was there in your bag?’
‘Kalashan.’
‘AK-47?’
‘Yes. One pistol. Two magazines for the pistol. Three double magazines of AK-47. Each magazine carries thirty bullets. So, in all 180 AK-47 bullets. The pistol magazine had seven bullets each. Eight hand grenades. Two hand grenades were of plastic cover. Three were big, of Arges make. Badaam, kishmish (almonds, raisins). Mineral water.’
‘Badaam, kishmish, pista?’
‘No, only badaam and kishmish, together weighing not more than half a kilogram.’
‘How many hand grenades did you use?’
‘Just two. The others fell out of my bag. Ismail must have used more grenades. He was leading. I was giving him cover. Ismail was in charge of this operation. He was the senior-most. Woh hamse pehle se jamaat me hai. (He was in the association before all of us.)’
‘Where did you assemble the Kalashnikov?’
‘No, it was already assembled. I just took it out of the bag and removed the safety pin.’
‘Around what time did you reach Mumbai?’
‘At around 8.15 pm we got off the dinghy and landed near a fishermen colony. We were told to launch the attack between seven and eleven in the evening. Zaki chacha had told us that if we somehow land in Mumbai late in the night, then to postpone it to the next day. And if we had landed early morning, then to start it by 11 am.’
‘Where would you all have met after the operation?’ ‘Milne wale nahi they. Marne wale they. (We were not going to meet anywhere. We were supposed to die.)’
‘Tell me about the ship you sailed in from Pakistan.’
‘Arms and ammunition were already stored on the ship. We just boarded it on November 22 and after a few hours of sailing we got into the Indian launch.’
‘Who owned the Pakistani ship?’ ‘Zaki chacha.’ ‘What was written on the ship?’
‘Husseini, Al-Husseini. Then we got into an Indian launch. When we were only some distance off the Mumbai coast, at around 7 pm, we downed a speedboat, an inflatable one, and got into it and landed in Mumbai.’
‘Who was driving the speedboat?’
‘Ismail. You see, woh hamara amir tha (He was our leader). We first got off and hailed a taxi and came to CST. The others must have gotten off after us.’
‘Where is the CD of the footage of the CST station?’
‘It’s in Lakhvi chacha’s laptop.
Agar koi banda ho na jo unki field me ghus jaye to bahut maloomaat ikhatha kar sakta hai (If some guy infiltrates their group he can get a lot of information).’
‘Can you take us there?’
‘Yes, I can take you there, provided you give me enough security cover. Zaki can be beaten in his game by his own men.’
‘Are you also linked up with Jaish-e-Mohammed?’
‘No. Jaish-e-Mohammed doosri tanzeem hai (is another movement). We are Ahle-Hadis. Aur woh sala Deobandi hai (And those rascals are Deobandis).’
‘What date was fixed for this attack?’
‘Earlier we were told in Pakistan that we would do this during Ramzan. Then I don’t know what happened. It was put off. We were not told the reasons. Then as I said we sailed out on November 22. But no date was fixed. We did not know how many days, four, five or seven, it would take in the waters before landing in Mumbai. But we were told to take care of the timing before we began the attack. If we had landed early morning then we were supposed to start the attack by eleven in the morning and if we arrived in the afternoon, or say evening, then between 7 and 11 pm.’
It is almost four in the morning. Ghadge has had enough of Kasab. He gestures towards the cameraman. The camera stops rolling. Kasab takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
Intercepting the terrorists’ conversations
Vijay Singh (name changed due to security reasons), thirty-eight, standing just under five-feet-eight with dense black hair, well-oiled and slicked to the side much like a schoolboy. Despite having a thick moustache, it is the youthfulness of his eyes that dominates his face.He could be mistaken for a professional in the corporate world, a young IT professional perhaps — which is in fact what he intended before he became an inspector with the Maharashtra police.
The last few years of his posting with the Mumbai ATS, though, had hardly given him an occasion to wear his khaki threads — as a key member of the technical section of the ATS.
Although he did not have a degree in computer technology, with his technical bent of mind and aided by the formal training provided by the ATS, Singh had become an expert in cyber and electronic intelligence gathering. Singh loved his job: intercepting phone calls, hacking into email addresses or social networking profiles of computer-savvy terrorists, collecting cyber intelligence on terror modules.
However, lately things had been tough for him and for that matter all of ATS, particularly its chief Hemant Karkare. But this evening, the evening of 26 November, was different. After a long gloomy period, the smile had returned on Singh’s face.
Tonight he wanted to celebrate, in his own inimitable style, by feasting on pav bhaji and milkshake at one of his favourite food joints behind the Byculla railway station.
He had just ordered one more masala pav and some faluda when his boss, Hemant Karkare called on his cellphone (Karkare spoke directly to all inspectors, assistant inspectors and sub-inspectors posted at the ATS).
‘You call eating pav bhaji and faluda partying? Keep Friday evening free and I will show you what a real party is,’ said Karkare bursting into laughter.
It had been a while since Singh had heard his chief this relaxed and cheerful. Singh was delighted that he had done his bit in bringing the smile back on Karkare’s face.
The same afternoon a Mumbai court had granted the ATS three more days of police custody for Dayanand Pandey, prime accused in the Malegaon terror attack, the case that had led to the arrest of almost a dozen Hindu radicals accused of carrying out a bomb blast in Malegaon in rural Maharashtra.
The evidence produced by the ATS left the court with little choice than to extend Pandey’s police custody. The ATS had shown the judge a video clip wherein Pandey and his accomplices could be seen plotting the terror attack.
The video clip was shot by Pandey using the webcam of his laptop (Pandey had this queer habit of recording meetings and telephonic conversations held with co-conspirators and storing them on his laptop).
It was Singh and his colleagues in the technical section who, after two weeks of rummaging through the data on Pandey’s laptop, had retrieved the video clip.
The audio and video evidence was now expected to demolish the disparaging campaign kick-started by the Hindu right-wing parties, accusing the Mumbai ATS of being anti-Hindu and victimising saffron activists without any evidence.
The discovery of the video had changed everything: incontrovertible and clinching, it was going to steal the thunder of its detractors.
A few minutes after Singh spoke to Karkare he got a phone call from his friend informing him about the firing at the Oberoi hotel. His pav bhaji half-eaten, Singh rushed towards the Oberoi.
As he parked his car on the road opposite the hotel he saw smoke billowing out of the upper lobby of the Oberoi; then a few foreigners, screaming and pleading for help, came running out of the hotel.
A few minutes later there was an ear-splitting explosion. Another blast followed — lesser in decibel volume — perhaps that of a grenade, but loud enough to send people scurrying for cover. Singh decided to call up Karkare but the latter disconnected the call.
A few minutes later Additional CP Parambir Singh of the ATS called Singh and asked him to rush to the ATS office and get cracking with other staff members at the technical room. The time was 10.50 pm.
In less than fifteen minutes Singh walked into the technical room of the ATS, equipped with modern gadgets, high-end computers and advanced technology for intercepting phone calls and electronic communication.
Assisted by three more inspectors and half-a-dozen police constables, all technically trained, Singh started coordinating with different cellphone service providers, scanning their international gateways for any suspicious calls, concentrating on the calls originating or ending in the localities surrounding the Taj hotel, the Oberoi hotel and Colaba.
But there were thousands and thousands of telephone calls passing through the international gateway and also the cellphone towers in the area around Colaba and Nariman Point.
The ATS staff sucked out a few conversations from the air — whispery voices speaking Arabic or some other Middle Eastern language — but soon they were found to be of tourists or businessmen, all above suspicion.
More calls were taken on ‘listening’ but they too turned out to be clean. Soon doubts started creeping into Singh’s mind. Maybe the terrorists were not using telephones.
Maybe they were not communicating at all. But the technical staff of the ATS had to stay on the job. ATS chief Hemant Karkare and the second-most senior officer, Parambir Singh, were both out in the field, in the middle of operations.
A small TV set kept in a corner was telecasting the unfolding carnage live. Pictures of blood, bodies, burning hotel rooms, fire, smoke, injured people were being aired in rapid succession.
‘Set the bedsheets and carpets on fire’
At around midnight the news flashed that Hemant Karkare along with a few other senior police officials had been seriously injured in an exchange of fire with the terrorists near Cama Hospital.A few seconds later the news flashed that Karkare had been shifted to JJ Hospital and his condition was critical. Singh felt his blood freezing. For Singh and the other inspectors Karkare was more than just a boss; he was their mentor, a father figure, the patriarch of the ATS family.
An eye on the breaking news section of the TV screen, Singh and his colleagues kept toiling for the next one hour, without much luck. Dozens of calls were put under observation but none had anything suspicious.
Then at about 1 am the ATS received a phone call from the IB. The IB had managed to find three cellphone numbers that were being used by the terrorists at the time. The agency passed on these numbers to the ATS which in turn immediately put them under observation. After the first breakthrough there was no looking back for the ATS technical staff.
They found out that these three numbers were receiving phone calls from the number 00-120-1253-1824 which turned out to be a virtual number allotted by an international VoIP provider, in short, known as net telephony.
Thereafter, all the calls made by this number to India or received from India were put on interception. Soon the virtual number flashed on the screen of Singh’s computer. It was making a call on an Indian cell number whose then current location was the Taj hotel. The time was 1.05 am.
Terrorist: Hello.
Handler: Salaam ailekum.
Terrorist: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler: Yaar, tumhara kamra 360 ya 361 number jo hai woh pata lag gaya in logon ko, kya camera laga hai? (Your room, 360 or 361, they have come to know about it. Is there a camera?)
[The conversation continues as recorded in the Taj Operation section, till the handler asks them to put the bed-sheets, etc, on fire.]
Terrorist: Lekin baaki kamre na band hain; hamare paas ek hi kamra hai. Agar idhar aag laga di to kidhar jaayenge? (But the other rooms are closed; we have only one room. If we set this on fire, where will we go?)
Handler: Achha aur kamre nahi khul rahe hain. (Oh, so the other rooms are not opening.)
Terrorist: Na ji. (No sir.)
Handler: To na gali mein ja ke kaalin mein aag laga do. Aag lagane ke kaam mein der nahi karni hai. (Then go and put the carpets in the corridor on fire. We cannot delay setting the place on fire.)
Terrorist: Inshallah. (Allah willing.)
Handler: Aur jab mein phone karoon to attend karna. (And attend the phone when I call.)
[The call disconnects.]
It was the first call between the terrorists and their managers that the technical staff had intercepted. The handler was keen to be in control of the situation. It was now clear to Singh that though the carnage, the mayhem was being carried out in Mumbai, the director, the puppeteer, the invisible hand was in some safe haven, monitoring the TV, and planning the next move, like a football coach or an army general.
The conspiracy had been orchestrated to the last detail. The Indian intelligence and investigative agencies had their own version of 9/11 to contend with.
The terrorists holed up in the Taj, the Oberoi and the Chabad House soon stopped using their own phones (the Indian SIM cards which they had brought with them) and started using the cellphones of their hostages. But as they kept switching over to different cell numbers, the ATS too kept trailing these calls, putting the new numbers under surveillance.
‘ATS chief Hemant Karkare shaheed’
The phone number 00-120-1253-1824 again flashes on Singh’s computer screen. A cellphone in the Taj hotel rings.Terrorist: Salaam ailekum.
Handler: Wailekum as-salaam. Aag lag rahi hai ki nahi? (Is the fire on yet?)
Terrorist: Bas kapde ikatthe kar rahe hain. (We are just collecting the cloth.)
Handler: Jaldi laga do. Aur launch ka kya kiya tha? (Light it quickly. And what did you do with the launch?)
Terrorist: Bas aise hi chhod di thi (We had just left it like that).
Handler: Kyun? Woh valve nahi kholi thi pani bharne waaste? (Why? Did you not open that valve to let the water in?)
Terrorist: Nahi, woh kholi nahi jaldi jaldi mein, kaam kharab ho gaya tha. (No, we couldn’t do it in a hurry, some things went wrong.)
Handler: Kya kaam kharab ho gaya tha? (What had gone wrong?)
Terrorist: Woh jis jagah utarna tha na wahan mauje bahut zabardast lag rahi thi aur udhar ek kashti bhi aa gayi thi. Saare bole navy hai, navy hai, to jaldi jaldi doosri boat mein utre; samaan utara. Ismailbhai ka satellite bhi wahin rah gaya. (A powerful tide had risen where we were to get off and another boat had also come there. Everyone said it’s the Indian Navy, so we quickly got onto another boat with the baggage. Brother Ismail’s satellite phone also got left there.) [The call ends.]
The Cuffe Parade police station had taken a speedboat into possession that was found drifting near the fishermen colony at Badhwar Park a little earlier that night. It was not the large motorboat the terrorists were referring to.
Singh immediately passed on this piece of information — the fact that the terrorists had come by sea and had abandoned a launch on the high sea, though on the phone the Taj terrorist did not mention where they had abandoned it nor did he specify what kind of a launch it was — to senior officers. Singh and his colleagues tried to intercept as many calls made by terrorists as they could, recording all the conversations as they would soon form critical evidence.
At around 1.20 am the news broke on TV: ‘ATS chief Hemant Karkare shaheed.’ For a few moments it seemed time had stopped. A stunned silence enveloped the room. Frozen to their seats, they all kept staring at the TV. Singh in a late reaction picked up the phone and called up Karkare’s driver. ‘Saab khatam ho gaya hai,’ said the driver, confirming the news. A glacial rush flowed through his veins. He was hoping Karkare’s injuries were not serious. Hoping he would survive. But no. It was over. Tears started rolling down his eyes. For Singh and his colleagues in the ATS, the death of Karkare signalled the end of an era. Karkare, who was being maligned by Hindu radical organisations, and accused of appeasing Indian Muslims, was killed by a bunch of Islamist terrorists sent allegedly from across the border. When alive, Karkare had often said that terror had no religion. His death exemplified his credo.
Seconds after Singh had put the phone down, the number 00-120-1253-1824 again blipped on his computer screen. Singh picked up the headphones, though his mind was numb, his eyes bleary, his senses stunned; despair and defeat writ large on his face. The time was 1.25 am.
After exchanging some details about starting the fire in the hotel with bed-sheets and mattresses, the handler informed the terrorists about the scenario in Mumbai.
Handler: Mahaul bahut achha bana hai. Poore shahar mein tabahi machi hai. Dhai sau se zyada log zakhmi hue hain. Terah-chaudhah jagah firing ho rahi hai, to pareshan mat hona. Allah aapke saath hai. Achha ek commissioner bhi maara gaya hai, media kah rahi hai. Achha sun, ATS ka chief bhi maara gaya hai. (A conducive environment has been created. The whole city is under destruction. More than 250 people have been injured. There is firing in thirteen-fourteen places, so don’t worry. Allah is with you. One commissioner has been killed, the media is reporting. And listen, the ATS chief has also been killed.)
Terrorist: Achha. Lo, Umer aur Ali aa gaye hain. (Ok, Umer and Ali have returned).
[Another handler comes on the line and inside the Taj hotel the terrorist called Umer takes over the phone.]
Handler 2: Umer, salaam ailekum.
Umer: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler 2: Achha, ghabrane wali koi baat nahi hai. Allah ke fazal se jo Bombay mein operation karne wala chief hai na, woh mara gaya hai; abhi thodi der pehle. (Ok, there is no need to panic. By Allah’s grace, the chief who ran operations in Bombay has been killed, just a little while back.)
Umer: Kaun maara gaya hai? (Who has been killed?)
Handler 2: Chief maara gaya hai Bombay ka; commissioner mara gaya Bombay ka. Bahut saare log zakhmi hain, mar rahe hai. Poore shahar mein firing ho rahi hai, aag lagi hui hai. Allah ne aapse bahut achha kaam liya hai. (The chief of Bombay and a commissioner have been killed. Many people are injured, many are dying. Firing is on throughout the city; there is fire at many places. Allah has extracted very good work from you).
‘There are ministers in the hotel, find them’
The call ended at 1.47 a.m. As Singh listened to the call, the terrorists shared the news of Hemant Karkare’s death. For them, the death of the ATS chief, who they knew as someone who ran operations against terrorists, was a big victory.
At around 2 am a deputy director of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), Subodh Jaiswal joined the ATS technical staff. Together, they put to use all their technical know-how to intercept the communication between the terrorists.
The terrorists were speaking in Punjabi Urdu. The Mumbai ATS only had one officer, Parambir Singh, who knew the language well. But he was camping at the Oberoi, coordinating the police action there.
Jaiswal’s arrival at the ATS office gave the technical staff the much-needed moral boost. Until a few months back Jaiswal was serving as an additional commissioner in the Mumbai ATS and knew all of them well.
Being from Punjab, Jaiswal was also well versed with the language and was able to catch the idiom the terrorists were using. For the next two days, along with the ATS staff, Jaiswal intercepted and recorded over six-and-a-half hours of telephonic conversation between the terrorists and their handlers.
Hundreds of miles away from the Byculla based headquarters of the Mumbai ATS, the operations room of the IB situated in a sprawling complex at Sardar Patel Marg in Delhi was buzzing with activity.
Parallel to the interceptions being made by the Mumbai ATS, the IB was doing its own interceptions. The three Indian cell numbers which the terrorists had first used after landing in Mumbai were already under the IB’s watch. Ironically, these numbers had been provided to the LeT activists by undercover security personnel who had managed to infiltrate the ranks of the LeT in India.
The LeT operatives in India had sent these numbers to their masters in Pakistan. The Indian intelligence agencies believed that since these numbers were under observation they would know in advance what the terrorists were up to. But the ten terrorists switched on these numbers only after landing at Badhwar Park a little after 8.15 pm. By then it was too late.
Time: 2.48 am, Taj Mahal Hotel
Terrorist: Salaam ailekum.
Handler: Wailekum as-salaam. Achha tumhare hotel mein wazir hai teen — kisi kamre mein teen wazir hain aur ek cabinet secretary hai. Jo saari cabinet ka secretary nahi hota, woh bhi hain tumhare hotel mein. (Listen, there are three ministers in your hotel — in some room — and one cabinet secretary).
Terrorist: Oye, oye, oye! Badi khush-khabri sunai hai (Oh, that’s great news!)
Handler: Yeh teen-chaar bande dhoond lo, fir jo marzi manwa lo India se. (Find out these three-four men, then you can make India agree to anything).
Terrorist: Inshallah, bas dua karo Allah se. (Allah willing, just pray to Allah.)
Handler: Aur grenade feko. Bahar shayad navy aa gayi hai. Khidki se fire karo aur grenade feko. (Throw grenades. Probably there is Indian Navy outside. Fire and throw grenades from the window.)
[The phone call ends.]
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