Part I: What Kasab told cops after his arrest

Ref : rediff.com
March 16, 2009
‘My father sent me to the Lashkar’
Additional Commissioner Tanaji Ghadge is fifty-one and more than half his age has gone into policing. A smile always lingers on his cherubic face but tonight it is sombre, almost mournful. Dyed black hair parted neatly down the side and hands held across the chest, he is staring into the camera, waiting for the cue. Above his right shoulder, the word ‘Police’ is painted on the wall in Marathi, in bold black letters. He is seated at a police desk outside the emergency ward of the Nair Hospital, a corner assigned to the police for fulfilling legal formalities and paperwork for cases involving accidents, shootout injuries, anything that falls under medico-legal cases. The time is 1 am, the date November 27, 2008.
On cue, Ghadge begins: ‘I am the additional commissioner of Girgaum division. There were incidents of indiscriminate firing at the Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi hotel and the VT station last night which appear to be a well-coordinated terror attack. In an encounter with the police at Girgaum Chowpatty one terrorist has been killed while another has suffered injuries and has been brought to the hospital. It is important to interrogate him and therefore I am proceeding to question him.’
Next frame. A youth, seemingly in his early twenties, lies prone on a green plastic, the sheet being a protection from bloodstains for the white sheet that covers a mattress. A fine brown blanket has been pulled close to the chest of the young man who lies naked underneath. His thick mop of hair, greasy and dishevelled, is pressed against the bed’s headrest. Wheatish in complexion, the youth is well built — round arms, pumped-up biceps, and thick neck. His clean-shaven oval face bears a high forehead. There is a fresh injury on the chin smeared with an ointment, and a sledge-shaped bandage covers the right side of his neck. Apart from both the arms, which are bandaged from wrist to biceps, the torso bears no injury. He shows no signs of physical pain, only his forehead is creased and eyes are tightly shut, the stiffness of his face making clear that he is not asleep.
‘Maine bahut galat kiya (I have committed a big mistake),’ move the parched lips, catching a glimpse of the policeman walking into the room before shutting his eyes again. No question was posed, but Ghadge’s walking in inspired the unsolicited admission. ‘On whose instance?’ ‘Chacha ke kehne pe. (At the behest of Uncle.)’ Eyes still closed; the voice betraying an effort to exhibit pain and earn empathy, more beseeching than replying. ‘Who is this uncle?’ Ghadge is staring down with bewilderment, still standing by the right side of the bed, near the young man’s shoulder.
‘The one from Lashkar.’
‘Lashkar what? Which village he is from?’
‘I don’t know about his village. But he has an office… he keeps visiting the office,’ the voice relaxes for a second.
‘Who sent you here?’
‘My father said we were very poor… our condition would improve… we will have food to eat… clothes to wear,’ an emotional explanation, an excuse embedded in the reply.
‘Was he your real father?’ an incredulous Ghadge enquires.
‘Real father… real father,’ the man seemed determined to condemn his father.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Ghadge, a fountain pen ready to scribble on a writing pad.
‘Ajmal.’
‘What’s your age?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Where is your gaon (village)?’
‘Faridkot in tehsil Depalpur (administrative division), district Okara.’
‘Who all are there in your family?’
‘Mother… sisters.’
‘Mother’s name,’ asks Ghadge, hardly looking at him, concentrating hard on the writing pad.
‘Noor Illahi.’
‘Her age?’
‘Wahi koi chaalis ke aas paas. (Must be around forty years.)’
‘What’s your father’s name?’ Ghadge continues.
‘Amir,’ eyes still closed, head at ninety degrees to the pillow, body, hands and legs stiff like dead.
‘What’s his father’s name?’
‘Shahban.’ His eyelids open for a split of a second before closing again.
‘What’s the surname?’
‘Kya? (What?)’
‘What’s the surname? Khandaan ka naam kya hai?’ Ghadge makes his question simpler.
‘Kasab.’
‘Are you a butcher?’
‘No. We are not in this business? just the name has stuck.’
‘So, Amir Shahban Kasab, that’s your father’s name.’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s his age?’
‘Somewhere around 45 years,’ head jerks a trifle, before stiffening again.
‘What does your father do?’
‘He sells dahi-wade. Sometimes in the village… sometimes he goes to Lahore city … It’s difficult to run the family,’ Kasab now opens his eyelids, catching a glimpse of his interrogator from the corner of his eyes.

‘I was a labourer till 2005′
How many brothers are you?’ Ghadge determined to know every bit about his family.‘Hum teen bhai hai (We are three brothers.)’
‘What are the names of your brothers?’
‘Afzal and Munir.’
Questions and answers continue like this in one-liners.
‘What are their ages?’
‘Afzal is around four years elder to me. Munir is around four years younger to me.’ The recording and remembrance of age he seems to do only in relative terms.
‘Which means Afzal is twenty-five and Munir is eighteen?’ Ghadge gets his math wrong with the younger brother’s age.
‘Haan sahib. (Yes, sir.) You can deduce that,’ Kasab not the least interested to correct him.
‘What do your brothers do?’
‘Afzal works as a farm labourer in the village itself,’ Kasab replies with a groan, remembering he is injured and in pain.
‘Is Afzal married?’
‘Yes. He is married to Safia. He has two children: one son and one daughter. Son’s name is Ali. He must be around seven to eight years. Daughter’s name I don’t know. She is just one-year-old. She was born when I was away from home for training. I don’t know what they have named her,’ Kasab, for the first time makes a departure from one-line replies.
‘Where is Safia’s paternal home?’
‘She is my maternal uncle’s daughter. They are from Lahore.’
‘What’s the name of the village?’
‘There is no village. They stay in Lahore city. At Safawala Chowk, near Nizam Adda in Lahore. Her father’s name is Manzoor. She now stays with her parents. They had a fight, my brother and his wife. After that she stays with her parents,’ Kasab, on his own, provides the unsolicited information about the break-up between his brother and his wife.
‘Why was there a fight?’ Ghadge asks, showing interest.
‘Don’t know exactly. Paise ke kharche ko lekar jhagda hua hoga. (Must have been over how money was being spent.)’ Kasab puts it down to the money, or the lack of it.
‘Where did you say her father’s home is?’
‘At Safawala Chowk, near Nizam Adda in Lahore. I have been there many times. After getting off at Nizam Adda it’s quite close by. It’s near a bank.’
‘What’s the name of the bank?’
‘Don’t know; it is a big bank. Anybody will tell you.’
‘What does Munir, your second brother, do?’
‘Woh sakool-wakool jata hai. (He goes to some school.)’ Kasab doesn’t attach much importance to his younger brother’s occupation.
‘Sakool means?’ Ghadge fails to get Kasab’s pronunciation.
‘Sakool … sakool, ‘ Kasab tries his best, surprised the cop is not getting it.
‘Sakool … school, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about your sisters?’
‘I have two sisters — Rukaiya and Suraiya.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Rukaiya is married. She is around one and a half years elder to me. She lives with her husband in Pathankot.’
‘Where in Pathankot?’
‘It’s a small village, adjacent to Havelilakha. You ask anybody about my taye (elder uncle). His name is Nisaq. Anybody will tell you. It’s a small place.’
‘You said she is married?’
‘She is married to my taye’s son. Her husband’s name is Hussain.’
Ghadge, as if he has had enough of his family, skips enquiries about Kasab’s younger sister Suraiya and switches back to Kasab’s own life, at the time the centre of Ghadge’s curiosity and in days to come of an entire nation.
‘How much have you studied?’
‘Till fourth standard. In 2000 I quit sakool.’
‘Which school was it?’
‘A primary village sakool. In my village.’
‘And after that?’
‘I first worked as a labourer in my village. After some time I moved to Lahore and started working there.’
‘What labour job?’
‘Mazdoori. Cement, etc. Bricks, etc. Working with a mistri. Construction work. For five years I stayed in a mohalla called Tohidabad, gali number chauranja, makaan number baraah.’
‘Chauranja? One and four?’ Ghadge fails to get Kasab’s alien dialect.
‘No, chauranja: five and four,’ says Kasab correcting Ghadge, seeing that his wretched past is recorded correctly. ‘There was a subzi mandi close to that house. I stayed there till 2005, along with other labourers. We stayed there on rent. Now I have heard they have razed the quarters and constructed a building in its place.’
‘You came back to your village in 2005, after five years?’
‘In between also I made a few trips. But in 2005 I returned to my village.’
‘We were meant to die here’
Then?’
‘Sometime in 2007 my father took me to Zaki chacha and asked me to work with him.’ Kasab, cutting straight to 2007 from 2005, skipped details of the two years in between.
‘Who is Zaki chacha?’
‘He is the big man of Lashkar.’
‘Where was his office?’
‘In my village. In Depalpur.’
Then Kasab, in an accusatory tone, added, ‘Zaki chacha would say: Work with me. You will bring a good name to your family. You will get money. It is Allah’s work.’ Kasab implies he never believed in what Zaki told him — either an honest admission or a clever ploy to blame it on Zaki, having been misled by him. ‘My father said: You will live the way they live. You will eat well. Clothe well. Live a life of comfort. Your brothers and sister will get married,’ says Kasab, implicating his father too.
‘You went along with Zaki.’
‘No, I worked at Lashkar’s office in the village…’
‘Was your father from Lashkar?’
‘No. No. He just introduced me to those people. I told you they have an office in my village. Many people used to visit the office.’
‘What would Zaki say?’
‘Fala fala ho jaayega. Fala fala ho jayega. (This will happen, that will happen). After waging jihad we will earn a lot of respect, lot of money. Yeh sabaab ka kaam hai. (This is a virtuous task).’
‘What else he would say?’
‘Ajar milega. (You will be rewarded). Izzat milega. (And respect). You have to wage jihad.’
‘What will you get after waging jehad?’
‘Paisa, izzat.(Money, respect).’
‘What else did Zaki say?’
‘He told my father to leave me in the office. From then on I was in Allah’s custody.’
‘When did you join this?’
‘I don’t remember? possibly a year and a half back.’
‘And when did you receive training?’
‘It was snowing.’
‘So it was around January or December?’
‘Possibly… (pause). When Benazir Bhutto was killed. Then we were receiving the training.’
‘Were these people involved in killing Benazir?’
‘I don’t know. They do many things. In Afghanistan… I don’t know.’
‘How many people were there in training?’
‘Twenty-four to twenty-five people were there.’
‘Where was this training organised?’
‘In Mansera. In the hills. Near a village called Battan. They trained us in pistols, Kalashan, magazines that are attached with it, in grenades.’ Kasab calls Kalashnikovs ‘kalashan’.
‘Do you know the names of others who were with you at the training?’
‘No, I know just one boy. He was also from Lahore. We became friends. We were not allowed to know about each other. They were very strict.’
‘Did Zaki come to train you?’
‘No, he would come only occasionally? You see, he is a very busy man. He would say we will go to heaven. I said, bhago yaar, main yeh nahi kar sakta. (Let’s run… I can’t do this).’
‘Where were you all supposed to go after today’s incident?’
‘Nowhere. We were meant to die.’
‘How many people did you kill at the CST station?’
‘Don’t know. I finished two-and-a-half magazines. Don’t know how many I killed. Just kept firing. Zaki had told us to keep killing till we were alive.’
‘For how long were you supposed to carry this out?’
‘As long as we could. Until we died.’
‘How many of you have come to Mumbai?’
‘We were blindfolded. We came in a ship. And then we got into a launch. You know where the launch from India and Pakistan meet, there we got into an Indian launch,’ Kasab tries to evade the question on the total number of his accomplices.
‘Who provided you support here in Mumbai?’
‘I don’t know. There are some mujahids who come to India and settle down. We don’t know about them. We were sent to die.’
‘We came because we were promised money’
You have come to wage jihad in India?’
‘What jihad saab?’ Kasab breaks down. No tears. Just the face contorts as a rhythmic, nasal sound of crying comes out.
‘There is no point in crying now,’ Ghadge sounds a little sympathetic. ‘Ordinary people, just like you, have been killed… Why didn’t you think earlier? Where else have you waged jihad before coming here?’
‘Nowhere. Nowhere,’ Kasab interrupts his crying.
‘What were you told?’
‘Just keep shooting, keep shooting till you die,’ he now stops crying.
‘What were you supposed to get in return?’
‘Money. Zaki chacha was supposed to give money to my family.’
‘How much money have you got for this?’
‘He would give money to my family. He had promised to give a big amount to my family for this.’
‘How does Zaki look?’
‘He has a black beard with strands of white. His age would be forty to forty-five years. He went to Afghanistan and finished Roos (Russia),’ Kasab reiterating the legend of Zaki he must have heard a thousand times.
‘What lecture he used to give?’
‘He would give lectures only once in a while. Bada masroof rahta tha. (He would keep very busy.) “You are Muslims. You have to get rid of poverty. Look at India. They have raced ahead of us. They kill your people. You have to wage jihad against India’.”
‘What is the meaning of a jihadi?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just try explaining it to me?’ Ghadge insists.
Kasab keeps mum.
‘If you don’t know then why have you come here?’
‘Because he used to give me money. Otherwise you tell me, khate-peete ghar ka bhala koi jaayega? (Will a well-to-do person go for such work?)’ Kasab blames his poverty again.
‘What has Zaki chacha got in return?
‘He is a jihadi… he does this for jihad.’
‘What is the meaning of jihad?’ Ghadge returns to his original question.
‘To try to do something for the Muslim religion,’ Kasab tries explaining seeing that the policeman won’t relent.
‘What do you understand from jihad?’
‘Don’t know, we just got money. You don’t have clothes to wear, don’t have food to eat, and Zaki chacha would throw davats (feasts), for the first few months we just ate, poor boys, not-so-poor boys, we all just ate and had fun. And then he picked a selected few and sent us for the training. But all who came were poor,’ Kasab returns to his favourite topic, his poverty, having failed to elucidate the theological cum religious subject of jihad.
‘Where were you before you came to India?’
‘We stayed in a lodge in Karachi. We would go fishing and have fun. I thought I would continue to work as a security guard there. Family back home was also getting some money. Suddenly one day he summoned all of us and said that the time had come to do big deeds, to become big. We would get money. We would get sabaab.’
‘You got shabaab?’
‘Dekho babu. Agar masrufiyat na ho, ghar me khane ko na ho to kya karoge? (See, if you are not busy with work, there is not enough to eat, what will you do?)’
‘So did you get shabaab in Pakistan?’ asked Ghadge, confusing sabaab with shabaab, the former implying reward, the latter women, finally unable to resist the question on account of the repeated mention of the word.
‘What sabaab? What to say saab?’ Kasab fails to comprehend the query.
‘No. But did you get shabaab? Majaa kiya? (Did you enjoy?)’ Ghadge puts it across explicitly. (Later, he told this journalist he wanted to know if the terrorists had also been lured with women.)
‘Chee, chee. Gande kaam main nahi karta. (I don’t do dirty things.) Sabaab maane ajar. (Sabaab means virtuous deeds).’
‘What kinds of weapons were you trained in?’
‘Peeca-meeca, grenade, pistol, kalashan and the equipment that fits in Kalashan.’
‘Peeca-meeca?’
‘Peeca… peeca.’
‘After training were you allowed to take the weapons with you?’
‘No.’
‘We were meant to kill anyone in sight’
Were Pakistan army personnel used to train you?’
‘I don’t know. The organisation is being run for a very long time. They said the work first started from Afghanistan.’
‘Did you ever ask Zaki if he ever had done jihad himself?
‘Yes. He said he had done it… in Afghanistan.’
‘Didn’t you feel for the innocent people you fired at?’
‘To become a big man you have to do such things.’
‘How did you reach Mumbai?’
‘In a launch. In an Indian launch. There were four-five fishermen in the launch. We abducted them near the border of Indian and Pakistani waters. After that when we were just some miles off from the Mumbai coast we got into a speedboat and sailed towards Mumbai and got off near a fishermen colony.’
‘From where did you start in Pakistan?’
‘In Azizabad. There is a place called Kasmabaad. It’s close to the sea. Kasmabaad is a big place. It’s a jungle. Well, not exactly a jungle, since there are shanties and shacks and villagers. What’s that place called? Yes, Buharo. There’s a place called Buharo. It’s a jungle. A road goes to that place. We all sat in a jeep with black, tinted glasses and went to the sea.’
‘When was it decided to attack Mumbai?’
‘A month back. Ismail and I were called. We were shown the target. A video CD was shown to us. We were shown the VT station. And the road that goes towards the station, from the side of Azad Maidan. We were supposed to go on that road to Taj Mahal hotel. We were told Azad Maidan would come. We were told about the work we had to do.’
‘What work?’
‘Of VTS,’ said Kasab. (VTS implying VT station.)
‘VTS or ATS?’ Ghadge wanted to know if the terrorists had a specific plan to target the Anti-Terrorism Squad office or its officers.
‘The place where there is a station,’ explains Kasab.
‘What kind of office was there in the CD?’ Ghadge probing further into the possibility of ATS office being one of the targets.
‘There was no office. There was a man. You can’t see his face. He was walking around the station and a voice in the background was narrating, explaining the layout of the station.’
‘Who were you supposed to kill?’
‘Ordinary people. We were meant to kill anyone who would come in sight. Ismail and I had the same target.’
‘How did you get hold of the police vehicle?’
‘We wanted to escape. We came down from the terrace of the hospital. We were shuffling along, hiding along the way. We would walk some distance, again hide, like that. Then this police vehicle came. They fired at us. I fell down, I suffered bullet injuries on both my hands. Ismail did his job. He fired at the policemen in the vehicle. Then he hauled me up into the vehicle and he drove.’
‘How did you get the Skoda car?’
‘We took it from there, don’t know the name of the place. Our vehicle got punctured. Then we saw this Skoda car. We took the vehicle at gunpoint.’
‘Did Zaki chacha come with you on the ship?’
‘Chacha came only up to Karachi.’
‘What’s the name of your sangathan (group or organisation)?’
‘What?’ Kasab doesn’t understand the Hindi word.
‘What’s the name of your sangathan? Gang?’
‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba,’ murmurs Kasab, the word ‘gang’ striking home the question.
‘And what is Deccan Mujahideen?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How many weapons did you have?’
‘We had one AK-47, one pistol, eight hand grenades and six magazines.’
‘What was your plan?’
‘To kill people. And then take a stronghold. Take people hostage. And then make demands.’ The use of the word, stronghold, takes Ghadge by surprise.
‘Make demands to whom?’
‘To the government.’
‘What demands?’
‘Woh peeche se batane waale the. (They were supposed to inform us later on).’
‘How would they have informed you?’
‘On the phone.’
‘How much money did you give the cabbie who drove you to the VT station?’
‘100 or 1,000. Don’t remember,’ says Kasab.
‘How much money in all did you have?’
‘5,400 rupees each we had on us

Part II: How handlers in Pakistan directed 26/11 attack

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.]

Part III: The demonic voices who directed 26/11 mayhem

Ref : rediff.com
March 18, 2009
November 27. Time: 3.53 am, Oberoi Hotel
Handler 1: Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police officer has been killed.
Terrorist 1: We are on the eighteenth or nineteenth floor. We have five hostages.
Handler 2: Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict maximum damage. Keep fighting and don’t be taken alive.
Handler 1: Kill all hostages except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.
Terrorist 2: We have three foreigners including women from Singapore and China.
Handler 1: Kill them.
November 27, afternoon, Chabad House
Handler: Baat karao. [The handler in Pakistan instructs the Chabad House terrorist to put the hostage on line.]
Terrorist: Haan, bolein (Here, speak).
A woman hostage: Hello Who is that?
Handler: Did you spoke? Did you speak to the consulate?
Hostage: I am talking to the consulate they are doing they are making phone calls just now.
Handler: Already made it or you are going to make it?
Hostage: Yeah [She starts sobbing and then recovers to talk.] I’ve already talked to them. I was talking to the consulate just a few seconds back and they are making their phone calls. They have said to leave the line free so that they can get in touch with you anytime and tell you that we are pleased with you [again starts crying]. You understand?
Handler: Come again, come again. No I don’t understand.
Hostage: They will get in touch with you anytime.
Handler: Don’t worry, just sit back and relax and wait for them to make contact. Okay?
Hostage: [Cries]
Handler: Save your energy for good days. Maybe if they can contact right now maybe you will celebrate Shabbath with your family.
Hostage: [Cries again]
Handler: Give the phone back to the guy. [The terrorist takes the phone back from the hostage.] Handler: Iski baat hui hai. Abhi kissi bhi waqt phone aayega un logo ka. (She has talked to them. Anytime now their phone call will come.)
Terrorist: Mere number par? (On my number?)
Handler: Haan, aapke number par authorities phone karenge. Poochhenge, kya chahte ho aap log? To aapne sabse pehle yeh kehna hai ki yeh jo aasu gas ki shelling ho rahi hai, firing ho rahi hai, yeh silsila band ho. Matlab paanch minute ke andar Army ilaka khali kar de. Matlab yeh silsila agar chalta raha to hum log sabr, intezar nahi karenge. Aap likho in cheezo ko.
Achha, jo operation ho raha hai, Taj Mahal mein, Oberoi mein aur aapke oopar — teen jagah — in teeno jagah par operation fauran roka jaaye. Achha, doosra, inhone kaha hai hamara ek banda giraftaar kiya hai kal; unse yeh kehna hai ki banda fauran yahaan aapke paas lekar aayein. Aur khana-wana khaya? (Yes, on your number the authorities will call. They will ask, What do you people want? So, first you ask them to stop shelling tear gas and firing. That is, within five minutes the Army should leave. If this goes on, we will not be patient, we will not wait, You write these things down. And the operations they are carrying out in the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi and above you — at three places — should be stopped with immediate effect. And, another thing, they are saying they arrested one of our guys yesterday; tell them to hand him over immediately to you, here. And food — did you have your meal?)
Terrorist: Thoda bahut (Little bit).
Handler: Thoda bahut? Yeh log to badi party-sharty karte hain, khana to hona chahiye. Achha yeh log halal hi khate hai, haraam nahi khate yeh log, to woh koi masla nahi hai (Little bit? These people hold lot of parties, there should be food around. These people eat halal meat, not haram [forbidden], so that is not an issue).
‘This is only a trailer, the full film is yet to be shown’
November 27, 2.33 pm, Chabad House
Handler: Salaam ailekum?
Terrorist: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler: Kya haal chaal hai? (How is it going?)
Terrorist: Allah ka shukar hai (Things are fine by Allah’s grace).
Handler: Koi phone aaya? (Has any phone call come?)
Terrorist: Koi Inspector Patil tha Mumbai police ka; uska phone aaya. Maine kaha inspector winspector kya hota hai — koi higher authorities se baat karao (It was some Inspector Patil from Mumbai police. I said I will not talk to some ordinary inspector — get the higher authorities to talk).
Handler: Kaho area khali karao. Aur grenades feke bahar aapne? (Tell them to clear the area. And did you throw grenades?)
Terrorist: Haan ji feke (Yes, we did).
Handler: Kab feke? (When did you throw them?)
Terrorist: Abhi koi ek-do minute hua hoga (Just a minute or two back).
Handler: Koi halchal hui? (Did anything stir up?)
Terrorist: Grenade fekne ke baad koi jawabi firing nahi hui hai (There was no firing in response).
Handler: Kis taraf grenade feka hai? (In what direction did you throw them?)
Terrorist: Woh Merchant House ki taraf (Towards Merchant House).
Handler: Achha ab aap gun ki barrel bahar nikaal ke gali mein fire karein ek-do. Sirf barrel nikaalni hai, apna jism saamne nahi karna hai; neeche gali hai na open fire karein (Now you push out the gun barrel and fire once or twice in the lane outside. Don’t expose your body, only the barrel; there is an open lane below — fire there).
Terrorist: Haan open hai. Lekin hum daaye, baaye aur back mein fire kar sakte hain, front nazar nahi aa raha hai (Yes, it is open. We can fire in the left, right, and back, but we cannot see anything in the front lane).
Handler: Achha, to darwaza khula nahi abhi tak aapka? (Ok, so you have still not opened your door?)
Terrorist: Nahi abhi tak nahi khula (No, not yet).
Handler: Achha jo bhi bahar harkat karta hua banda nazar aaye na usko fire maaro. Apne aapko bachana hai; ek banda oopar chhat pe rakho, aur koi bhi movement nazar aaye to fire karo (The moment you see someone doing something outside, open fire. And, you have to protect yourself; put a man on the rooftop, and the instant you see any movement, open fire).
Terrorist: Achha yeh jo aurat hai agar iski hum khud media mein baat karaaye? Yeh khud media ko bataaye ki hamare saath yeh ho raha hai aur hamein bachaya jaye (Ok, what if we get this woman to talk to the media herself? She will tell the media what is happening with her and that she needs to be saved). [The instructor in Pakistan stops to watch TV for a while.]
Handler: Abhi aapne jo grenade feke hain usse media mein shor mach gaya hai (The grenade you just threw has created a commotion in the media). [A third person now takes the phone.]
Handler: Salaam ailekum.
Terrorist: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler: Kaise ho bhaiya? (How are you brother?)
Terrorist: Allah ka shukar hai (Things are fine by the grace of Allah).
Handler: Jo baatein maine aapko batayi thi yaad hai na? Agar media waale poochhe kahan ke ho to kehna Hyderabad Deccan ka hoon; Hyderabad city ka hoon (You remember all that I had told you? If the media asks where you are from, tell them you are from Hyderabad in the Deccan; that you are from the city of Hyderabad).
Terrorist: Hyderabad.
Handler: Haan. Aur kehna Toli Chauki area ka hoon; aur kehna Mujahideen Deccan se mera talluk hai. Kis tanzeem se? Mujahideen Hyderabad Deccan. Aur woh pooche yeh sab kisliye kiya? Aap likh rahe hain na? (Yes. And say you are from the Toli Chauki area; say you are associated with the Deccan Mujahideen. And if they ask why you did all this? are you writing all this down?)
Terrorist: Haan ji (Yes).
Handler: Kehna hukumat ki dohri policy, hukumat to peeth thapthapati hai aur prashasan to sar par tole marti hai iski taza misaal Sachar Committee ki sifarshat hai, hukumat kuchh aur ailan karti hai aur prashasan uska amal Muslim naujawano ko pakad-pakad kar karti hai (Say it is the duplicitous policy of the government — on one hand they pat our backs, on the other they beat our heads with hammers. The latest example of this is the Sachar Committee Report. The government declares one thing but the administration executes its reverse by wrongly arresting Muslim youth.) Terrorist: Muslim?
Handler: Yuvko ko… (Youth).
Terrorist: Yuv…
Handler: Muslim naujawano ko giraftar karta hai, unka jo future barbaad karta hai. Aur unko ultimatum de de ki yeh abhi hamara trailer hai, asal film to abhi baaki hai. Aur sun, itminaan ke saath baat karna, khali apni baat karni hai; unko sawaal karne ka mauka kam dena hai (Muslim youth are arrested, their future is ruined. And give them the ultimatum that this is only a trailer, the full film is yet to be shown. And listen, talk confidently, and only allow yourself to talk; don’t let them ask too many questions). Terrorist: Theek hai. Inshallah (All right).
The terrorists make their demands
Handler: Ek minute (one minute). [The voice goes into consultation with other voices in the room. Some other voice now takes over the phone.]Handler: Woh poochhenge aapki demand kya hai (They will ask what is your demand).
Terrorist: Ji (Yes).
Handler: Aap kehna, jitney bhi Musalmaan jailon mein band hai aap unko riha karo, number ek; number do, Muslim state Musalmaano ke hawale kar diya jaaye. Number teen, Kashmir se fauj bulayi jaaye aur Kashmiriyon ko unka haque diya jaaye. Babri Masjid par fauri taur par masjid ka kaam shuru kiya jaaye, uss jagah ko Musalmaano ke hawale kiya jaaye. Israel ke saath gathbandhan na kiya jaaye (You say, first, release all the Muslims in the jails; second, hand over the Muslim state to Muslims. Third, call back the Army from Kashmir and give Kashmiris their rightful due. Begin the construction of Babri Masjid immediately. The land of the masjid should be handed over to Muslims right away. Do not maintain ties with Israel).
Terrorist: Israel ke saath? (With Israel?)
Handler: Israel ke saath gathjod na kiya jaaye; aur Israel hukumat ko yeh ultimatum diya jaaye ki Musalmaano ke oopar zyadti band karein (Break off ties with Israel; and give the ultimatum to the Israeli government that it should stop the injustice on Muslims).
Terrorist: Musalmaano ke khoon se khelna band kiya jaaye (Stop playing with Muslim blood). [The terrorist gives his own poetic touch to the last bit while jotting down the notes.]
Handler: Aur Israel agar yeh nahi karega? Bas bas, yahi baatein theek hain, theek hai? (And if Israel doesn’t agree? No, no, this much is enough, okay?)
Terrorist: Theek hai (Okay). [Another voice takes over the phone.]
Handler: Jo aapki jagah hai na, kehna Nariman House se baat kar raha hoon. Media kah rahi hai ki Nariman House mein aatankwadi hai (And the place you are at, say you are calling from Nariman House. The media is saying there are terrorists in Nariman House). [The terrorists and the planners knew the place as Chabad House, which is the commonly known name of Nariman House.]
Terrorist: Nariman House.
Handler: Nariman, Nariman. Aur saath saath khayal rakhna bahar ka bhi (And also keep track of what is happening outside).
Terrorist: Inshallah. Aur jo baate likhayi hain sirf utni hi karni hai? (And, what you have instructed, we have to say only that much?)
Handler: Utni hi; ek minute hold karein, number likhein. Yeh Zee TV office ka number hai — 0120-2511064. Aur aapka number jisse aap call karenge bataoon aapko? (Yes, only that much; hold on one minute, write this number down. This is the Zee TV office number. And should I tell you the number from which you will call them, because they will ask you?)
Terrorist: Haan ji, bataien (Yes, tell me).
Handler: Aapka number hai 9819464530 (Your number is 9819464530).
Terrorist: 9819464530. Maine usko bolna hai mein bol raha hoon Nariman House se aur mujhe iss number par phone kare (I have to tell him I am calling from Nariman House and he should call me on this number).
Handler: Haan aap kahein aapke paas hostage hai, aur aap iss number par fauran call karein (Yes, you say you have a hostage, so call me on this number right now). [The phone call ends.]
Later in the evening, the terrorist, Babar Imran (Abu Aakasha) finally managed to get through a telephone number of India TV which was provided to him by his handlers.
In a fake Kashmiri accent, he first spoke to the receptionist and thinking he was on live television, he rattled off all the lines he had memorised. The receptionist was flabbergasted.
She asked Imran to be on the line as she transferred the call to the newsroom. The moment a male news producer said ‘Hello’, Imran again rattled off all the demands he had been told by his handlers to speak on TV.
The news producer told Imran that the conversation was not being broadcast live and asked him to pause so that they could talk normally.
After consultation with others present in the newsroom, the producer finally put Imran through to a female anchor.
Imran announced his demands to the world over the live telecast.
Throughout his conversation Imran maintained the fake Kashmiri accent he had assumed for the interview.
Soon after he ended his telephonic interview, the handlers in Pakistan called to congratulate him for the job well done.
‘15 men have climbed down on your building’
28 November, 7.23 am, Chabad House
[The voice goes into consultation with other voices in the room. Some other voice now takes over the phone.]
Handler: Salaam ailekum.
Terrorist: Wailekum as-salaam.
Handler: Kya haal chaal hai pasha? (How are you doing pasha –[a term of endearment]?)
Terrorist: Mere khayal se team utaar di gayi hai (I think the team has got off).
Handler: Aapke chhat par pandrah bande abhi utre hain helicopter se (Fifteen men have climbed down on your rooftop right now).
Terrorist: Khidkiyon ke saamne bhi kuchh khade hain (They are standing in front of the windows as well).
Handler: Kya keh rahe hain? Aapko nazar aa raha hai kuch udhar? (What are you saying? Can you see anything there?)
Terrorist: Saamne kuchh firing ho rahi hai (They are firing in the front).
Handler: Aapke oopar se unhe neeche aana hai. Aapne seedhiyon par aisi position banani hai ki aate hi aap unhe gher lein: unhe seedhiyon se utarna hai neeche. Lekin aisi position banaye ki unke oopar aane se pehle aap grenade feke. Aap aisi position banaye ki matlab kamre mein rahein lekin jo seedhi hai na. Achha, aapko daaye baaye koi fauji nazar aa raha hai? (They have to climb down to reach you. Take such positions on the staircase so you can corner them as soon as they come: they will have to get down from the stairs. But you throw grenades before they come. You take such a position, you stay in the room but the stairs. Listen, can you see any Army personnel to your right and left?)
Terrorist: Hamare saamne saaf nazar aa rahe, khidkiyon mein baithe hain (We can see them clearly in the front, sitting in the windows).
Handler: Maaro, fire karo, burst maaro. Achha, baat suno, aap abhi kamre mein ho na, aap fire karo. Ek banda bahar darwaje ke paas position leke rakhe, ek andar se fire kare (Hit them, fire, open burst fire. Ok, listen, just fire from the room. Let one person take position by the door and you fire from inside).
Terrorist: Lekin hamara aage ka kamra damage ho gaya hai. Hamare paas position nahi baachti hai (But the room in front of us is damaged. We don’t have a position left).
Handler: Lekin aapko woh nazar aa rahe hain. Kyunki jaise hi unhone aapko dekh liya unhone aap par fire shuru kar dena hai (But you can see them. Because if they see you, they too will start firing immediately).
Terrorist: To issi liye keh raha hun ki oopar chhat par jayein aur wahan ladayi kare (That’s why I’m saying, we should go to the roof and fight there).
Handler: Aapne oopar nahi chadna hai. Do baatein yaad rakhni hain: number ek, jo sniper baithe huye hai na khidkiyon mein, jahan se mauka mil gaya wahan se inhe fire karna hai; doosra, jo log upar utre hai, pandrah log helicopter se, woh aapki taraf aa rahe hain. Unpar grenade feke (No, you do not have to climb up. Remember two things: one, as soon as you get the chance, fire at the snipers in the window; two, the fifteen people who have got off the helicopter are coming towards you. You have to throw grenades at them).
Terrorist: Hamare paas grenade sirf chaar bache hain (We have only four grenades left).
Handler: Achha, aap log apni positioning bana lein aur shuru ho jayein (Ok, you take your positions and begin).
Terrorist: Positioning mujhe samajh nahi aa rahi ki kaise banani hai (I cannot understand which positions to take).
Handler: Seedhiyan corner mein hai na pasha? (The stairs are in the corner, aren’t they?)
Terrorist: Haan ji, ek side mein hain (Yes, they are on one side).
Handler: To ek banda seedhiyon ko cover kare aur doosra cross baithe; jaise maine shaam ko samjhaya tha. Jaise koi agar neeche aata hai to dono taraf se ghir jaaye. (So one of you has to cover the steps and the other has to sit across; the way I had explained it in the evening. So that if someone comes down, he is surrounded on both sides.)
Terrorist: Lekin woh agar grenade fekte hain to hamare paas grenade se bachne ke liye aad nahi hai. (But if he throws a grenade, we do not have any cover to protect ourselves.)
Handler: Meri baat suno pasha. Agar aap deewar se chipak kar khade ho jaate ho, aur agar grenade fekte to kya aap tak aa sakega? (Listen to me, pasha. If you stick to the wall, can the grenade reach you?)
Terrorist: Deewar maine bataya na (I told you about the wall).
Handler: Achha aapke paas aur kya hai — koi sofa, furniture ya foam ka gadda? (Ok, what else do you have — any sofa, furniture, or foam mattress?)
Terrorist: Haan, foam ka gadda hai, ek minute (Yes, there is a foam mattress, one minute). [Another man comes on the phone.]
Handler: Aap ek kaam karein. Aap grenade fekte hue neeche utarna shuru karein (You do this. While throwing grenades, you start climbing down).
Terrorist: Hamare paas grenade nahi hai (We don’t have grenades).
Handler: Do to bache hai na? Woh istemal karein aur neeche wali manzil mein chale jaayein (You have at least two left, don’t you? Use those and go to the floor below).
Terrorist: Hum darwaze ke peechhe chhup jaayein aur jaise hi woh andar aaye to hum firing karein? (Should we hide behind the door, and the moment they come, should we fire?)
Handler: Aap alag alag chhup sakte hain? (Can you hide at different places?)[Another man takes the phone.]
Handler: Aap ek kaam karein. Aap chhat ki taraf chalein; grenade feke aur unki taraf fire karein. Woh aap par fire kare isse pehle aap unpar fire kare. Aap Bismillah karein (You do this. Go towards the roof, throw the grenade at them; and fire at them before they can fire at you. Do this now, in the name of Allah).
Terrorist: Theek hai, ja rahe hain Allah ka naam leke (Okay, we will go, remembering the name of Allah).
Handler: Bismillah-e-Rehman-e-rahim (In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate).
The demonic voices who directed the bloody mayhem
28 November, 08.47 a.m.
Terrorist: Salaam ailekum.
Handler: Wailekum as-salaam.
Terrorist: Mujhe aag lag gayi hai. (I have got burnt.)
Handler: Kahaan lagi hai? (Where?)
Terrorist: Baju mein aur pair mein. (On the arms and on the legs.)
Handler: Allah-talla aapki hifazat kare. (May Allah protect you.)
Terrorist: Unke log bhi zakhmi ho rahe honge. (Their people also must be getting hurt.) [A loud gunshot rings in the background.]
Handler: Allah hafiz. (Allah protect you.) [The phone disconnects.]
The RAW later identified five Pakistani handlers who were giving instructions on the phone: Wassi, Zarrar, Jundal, Buzurg and Kahfa. Besides these five there was one more handler who was being called Major General by the terrorists.
Though the Indian investigative agencies know that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Muzammil, Abu-al-Qama and Abu Kahfa were some of the conspirators of the Mumbai terror attack, they don’t know much about most of the other handlers — the demonic voices who directed the bloody mayhem — and of their positions in the LeT and their background.
The Indian government has handed over parts of the intercepted conversations between the terrorists to the Pakistani government. After much procrastination and many wishy-washy statements, the Pakistani government, on January 15, 2009, finally announced the formation of a special team to investigate the Mumbai terror attack.
Foreign office spokesman, Mohammed Sadiq said that Pakistan has formed an enquiry team led by the Federal Investigation Agency that will conduct the probe into the matter.

Part IV: The vain search for ‘LeT vessel’ before 26/11

Ref : rediff.com
March 19, 2009
How the terrorists landed
Terror’s Trail
It was around 10.30 pm when the inspector general of Indian Coast Guard, Western region, Rajendra Singh — in charge of the coastal security of 3,473 km of coastal belt along the western coast of India: a total area of 9,3,000 sq km of Arabian Sea extending from Koteshwar in Gujarat to Mattam Point in Kerala up to the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL, an imaginary boundary separating Indian waters from Pakistani waters) — received a phone call from the Operations Room Centre of the Coast Guard in Mumbai. ‘Sir, there appears to be a coordinated terror attack in Mumbai; the Taj hotel, the Oberoi hotel, the CST station and a place called Chabad House in Colaba have been attacked by armed terrorists.’ Singh, who had just come back to his small room in Mayur Vihar, Delhi, from a routine departmental meeting at the Coast Guard Headquarters in the capital, was packing his bags to fly back the next morning to Mumbai — the official base of the Western region.
Singh immediately turned on the television set. Hysterical anchors and reporters across different channels were giving sketchy, varying facts of the unfolding terror attack. ‘More than twenty terrorists have stormed the city.’ ‘The Taj, the Oberoi and the CST have been attacked.’ ‘Few bomb explosions have occurred across Mumbai.’ ‘The terrorists are setting the Taj on fire.’ ‘Nine terrorists have been reportedly arrested by the police.’ ‘Terrorists had checked into the Taj and the Oberoi days in advance and had stored explosives in hotel rooms for the impending terror attack.’ Singh, bewildered and shocked, remained glued to the TV as horrifying, fleeting images of burning hotel rooms and sounds of grenade explosions kept beaming on news channels.
Hundreds of miles away from the Mayur Vihar apartment in Delhi where Singh was staring at the TV, Bharat Dattatraya Tamore, fifty-eight, was sitting at a small, rickety desk in a badly lit, grimy police station at Cuffe Parade in Mumbai. Tamore had been staying at a fishermen colony — a cluster of flat-roofed, matchbox styled houses in the squalor of an urban slum along the seashore — at Cuffe Parade in South Mumbai since his birth. It was something that Tamore had seen that very evening at around 8.20 pm that necessitated his presence at the police station. Not far from the Taj President — another five-star property of the Taj Group in Mumbai — he had seen eight, maybe ten (it was dark and the occasion did not present a chance for a head count), strongly built, smartly dressed youth emerge out of the dark sea at the fishermen colony. The scene was odd enough for Tamore to register it; faces grimy and hair sticky from days without a bath, the youth made their way hurriedly with bulky rucksacks on their backs and additional bags in their hands.
‘What else did you see?’ asked Assistant Police Inspector Vilas Bhole, taking down notes on a white sheet of paper. ‘They came in an inflated speedboat. Came right up to the shore, by the rocks and then got off the boat and walked towards the main road. They split up in groups of twos, each group went away separately, in different directions,’ replied Tamore. Ironically, the men Tamore had seen were headed to wreak carnage at the Taj hotel, Tamore’s workplace for the last thirty years, where he was employed as a steward. As Tamore sat narrating his eyewitness account to API Bhole, a few feet from him, his neighbour Bharat Kashinath Tandel, fifty-two, resident of kholi number 18 in the fishermen colony, was sitting across Sub-Inspector Anil Kamble.
Tandel had his own story to tell which was similar to Tamore’s except for one additional, important detail. Tandel had sensed that they were not from Mumbai, their rubber speedboat was not like those used by the fishermen in the area, the anxiety on their faces making them all the more suspect. A curious and suspicious Tandel asked the men who they were and where they were headed. To this, one of them replied: ‘Hum pehle se hi tang hain. Hume pareshaan mat karo. (We are already quite stressed. Don’t pester us.)’ Tandel and Tamore were alone at the time these men came to the shore. ‘Normally, at that time of the evening, the place is buzzing with people. But this evening because of the day-night cricket match between India and England most of the men were inside their houses, watching the match on TV. If there were more people around we would definitely have had an altercation with them,’ said Tandel.
Luck was on the terrorists’ side
Not just the cricket match, it seemed that everything went the way of those ten men who came in the speedboat. That evening because of the high tide, seawater had come right up to the rocks, just 60-70 metres off the main road. Had it been low tide the water would have ended 150 to 200 metres away from the rocks, leaving in between a thick and slippery muddy stretch, one foot deep and difficult to manoeuvre. But the elements made everything a breeze and the strangers hauled their heavy bags off the boat and approached the road unhindered — luck was on their side.
Tandel observed, ‘The way they anchored their boat, the loop of the rope was different from the one tied by us fishermen.’ Unfortunately, despite the peculiarities Tandel and Tamore had spotted, they did not inform the police. Both went back to their houses and like the others sat down to enjoy the cricket match. Only after news of the terrorist attack broke out on TV, did Tandel inform a police van patrolling the area. Police Inspector P N Jagtap, Sub-Inspector Anil Kamble and Sub-Inspector Rajendra Kamble, all attached to the Cuffe Parade police station, reached the spot.
With the help of the fishermen the cops retrieved the speedboat from the water, which had got unhinged and was drifting more than 200 feet away from the shore, and a bomb disposal squad soon arrived and rummaged the boat in search of explosives. Though no explosives or arms or ammunition were recovered from the boat, an assortment of seemingly harmless articles, which would soon form crucial material evidence, was recovered from the boat: eight yellow life jackets manufactured in China, an off-white drum of twenty-five litres capacity containing approximately twelve litres of diesel, some tools in a polythene bag, a yellow coloured tube of adhesive manufactured in Pakistan for fixing punctures, two eight-foot-long rowing sticks with a one-and-a-half-foot-wide patta. The boat had a Yamaha engine, and had been painted yellow, the colour recently applied — as investigation would later reveal — to make the boat look old. There were three valves on either side of the boat which the cops unscrewed to deflate it and then hauled it to the Cuffe Parade police station on a handcart.
The news of the recovery of an abandoned speedboat soon spread like fire. ‘The terrorists had come by sea. An abandoned speedboat has been found drifting in the waters near Badhwar Park at Cuffe Parade’: the bold words flitted across TV screens. In a flash, Singh’s — still glued to the TV — status changed: from a horrified, concerned spectator he became a central character in the bloody terror attack. Exactly six days ago, on 20 November, at around 4 pm, Singh’s office, situated in a three-storey complex at Worli sea face in Mumbai, had received a fax: ‘Intelligence indicates suspected LeT vessel sighted in position 24 DEG 16 MIN North and 67 DEG 2 MIN East attempting to infiltrate through sea route. Request: 1) Direct ship in area to exchange surveillance. Launch Dorniers at first light for sea-air coordinated search; 2) Deploy ACV IB to patrol off-creek area.’ The fax was sent by principal director (operations), Coast Guard Headquarters, Delhi, who in turn had received this particular intelligence from the IB.
Singh had immediately called up Deputy Inspector General T K S Chandra, the commander of Coast Guard District Headquarters of Gujarat, whose office is at Porbandar, and instructed him to launch a hunt for a suspicious Pakistani vessel which could make a bid to enter the Indian waters. DIG Chandra in turn alerted the three Coast Guard substations under his jurisdiction — Jakhau, Vadinar and Okha, all in Gujarat — and told them to launch their vessels into the waters along the IMBL and search for the suspected ‘LeT vessel’. One interceptor boat each from Jakhau and Vadinar, two hovercrafts and one fast patrol vessel from Okha immediately sailed towards the IMBL.
At the time, two joint military exercises — Defence of Gujarat (DGX and Tatraksha XXIV being carried out by the Indian Navy, Coast Guard, Border Security Force (BSF), the Indian Army and the respective ports between 18 and 22 November — were underway in which a total of six vessels of the Coast Guard were participating. After receiving the IB input Singh pulled out all the six vessels that were intended for the military exercise and moved them towards the IMBL. All in all, one offshore patrol vessel with an integrated helicopter (a vessel with a sustenance of twelve to fourteen days in the outer sea without any external help), one inshore patrol craft (sustenance of four to five days), two fast patrol crafts, one air cushion vehicle (hovercraft), two interceptor boats and two Dorniers were asked to patrol the Indian waters from Diu and head to Porbandar to Okha to Kandla to Jakhau across the IMBL. (The Western region of the Indian Coast Guard has a total of fourteen ships, eight Dornier aircraft, six helicopters, two advance light helicopters, ten interceptor boats and two hovercrafts to patrol the 9,73,000 sq km of Indian waters across the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and the Union territories of Daman and Diu and Lakshwadeep.)
The vain search for an ‘LeT vessel’
But after two days of intense patrolling the Coast Guard failed to find any suspicious vessel, leave alone a Pakistani ship. On 22 November, Singh wrote back to its Delhi-based headquarters asking the principal director (operations) for a more specific, actionable intelligence like the colour or size of the vessel, the name or the kind of vessel, and if possible, some coordinates. The Coast Guard headquarters in turn wrote to the IB asking for specifics on the vessel. But the IB had nothing more to add to its first communique. On 23 November, the Coast Guard again wrote to the IB asking for ’specific, actionable intelligence’, and the latter communicated back saying that if there was any more intelligence on the matter, the same would be conveyed to them.
The first, and in this matter also the last, location of the suspected LeT vessel — as tracked and reported by the IB — was 22 nautical miles (50 km) outside Karachi in the outer anchorage area which was way inside the Pakistani waters. The Indian Coast Guard can only intercept or board a vessel once it crosses the IMBL. However, from 21 to 26 November, boarding parties of Meera Behn (fast patrol vessel), Amrit Kaur (fast patrol vessel), Vijaya (offshore patrol vessel), and one inshore patrol craft boarded and inspected 276 Indian fishing vessels plying in the Indian waters. But all the 276 fishing boats which were boarded and checked by Coast Guard patrolling parties were clean; the sailors on board were bona fide Indian fishermen. At any given time there are 60,000 registered Indian fishing boats in the Arabian Sea, of which roughly 10,000 fishing boats are in the waters around the IMBL. The 276 Indian fishing boats searched between 21 and 26 November were all sailing close to the IMBL. On the night of 26 November, when the terrorists finally disembarked off a speedboat at Cuffe Parade in Mumbai, six Coast Guard vessels and two Dorniers were patrolling the Indian waters along the IMBL.
Through the night Singh made several calls to his commanding officers wanting to know how the terrorists had sneaked in by the sea (by now it was quite clear that the speedboat recovered from the fishermen colony belonged to the terrorists) and managed to give the Coast Guard patrolling vessels the slip. The terrorists could not have travelled by the speedboat in the high seas and must have definitely been dropped a few miles off the Mumbai coast by some bigger vessel. So, did the suspected LeT vessel the IB had first tipped them about sailed all the way to Mumbai and then lowered the terrorists in a small speedboat? Or did the terrorists sail to Mumbai in some merchant vessel and then got on to the dinghy? The Indian intelligence and investigating agencies were groping in the dark, looking for answers. And these baffling questions kept haunting Singh through the night. DG Coast Guard, Delhi, wanted to know if it was possible for any Pakistani vessel to enter the Indian waters despite the high alert. Singh on his part was assured that he and his team had not left any stone unturned since the IB alert, and for any Pakistani vessel to enter the Indian waters was simply not possible.
The next morning he took an Indian Airlines flight and landed in Mumbai at 9.45 am Singh drove straight to his Worli office; the roads were deserted and an otherwise one-and-a-half-hour journey from Santacruz airport to Worli was completed in twenty minutes. At around 12.30 pm the commanding station officer (operations) of Coast Guard at Worli received a call from the Western Command of the Navy asking him to intercept a merchant vessel called MV-Alpha which was headed towards Gujarat. The Indian Navy suspected that the terrorists had used this vessel to cross into Indian waters. Singh immediately alerted one of its vessels called Samar, which after three hours of hot pursuit intercepted the said merchant ship that had twelve Ukrainian crew members on board. After eight hours of rummaging, the Coast Guard cleared the ship of suspicion — it was headed to Alang port for shipwrecking.
What the Coast Guard found on the Kuber
Then at around 2.10 pm, Singh received a phone call from the office of joint commissioner (crime) of Mumbai police, Rakesh Maria. Singh was informed that Kasab’s — the lone terrorist who was captured alive — police interrogation had revealed that the terrorists had sailed to Mumbai in a brown-coloured Indian fishing boat with a wooden finish and it was abandoned 4-5 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast after which the terrorists got into a speedboat.
Maria who was still in the middle of interrogating Kasab told Singh that the terrorist had confessed to having killed the sailor on board and his body was lying in the engine room. Maria asked for the Coast Guard’s help in tracking down the vessel. Singh called up the commanding officer of Coast Guard Air Squadron 842 at the Navy base Kunjali at Colaba and told him to immediately fly two helicopters over the coast of Mumbai and see if there was any suspicious Indian fishing boat drifting in the waters. Simultaneously, a Dornier which was doing a sortie close by was also told to look for this suspicious Indian fishing trawler going up north. Within twenty minutes Singh was informed by his officers aboard the two helicopters that they could see an Indian fishing trawler drifting 5 nautical miles south off Prongs Lighthouse, in the outer anchorage of Mumbai harbour. From the helicopter, no one was visible on the boat.
At 2.40 pm Singh called up Maria’s office and told him about the discovery of a suspicious boat. Maria now asked Singh to ask his men to board the boat and see if there was a satellite phone and a GPS also lying in the boat. Two Coast Guard personnel were dropped from the helicopter on to the boat who on entering the engine room found a semi-decomposed body with hands tied at the back and throat slit from ear to ear. They also saw a dark black Thuraya satellite phone and a GPS with ‘Garmin’ and ‘GPS 12 MAP’ written on either side of the screen. At this time a Coast Guard ship called Sankalp, an advanced offshore vessel, was entering the Mumbai harbour after three days of sailing. Singh told Sankalp, with eighty-five Coast Guard personnel on board, to sail towards the abandoned boat. In the meantime, the two Coast Guard helicopters kept hovering over the boat, ensuring it did not drift out of their sight. By 6 pm a team of six sailors, headed by Deputy Commandant Vijay, boarded the boat and recovered a satellite phone and a GPS that were left behind by the terrorists. The deputy commandant retrieved four wave points that indicated the sea route taken by the vessel. The first wave point was 32 nautical miles into Pakistani waters from the IMBL, the second wave point was west of Porbandar, the third wave point was south-west of Diu and the fourth wave point was 10 miles west of Bombay harbour — the point where the terrorists had abandoned the boat and lowered their speedboat.
The Coast Guard now had before them the exact route the terrorists had taken to sail to Mumbai. And it showed that they had got into the Indian fishing boat 32 nautical miles into Pakistani waters from IMBL. That is, the mother vessel carrying the terrorists never entered the Indian waters, giving the Coast Guard no chance to intercept them. Instead, the Indian fishing boat went deep inside Pakistani waters and was probably hijacked there. The Coast Guard found an assortment of items on the vessel: fifteen blankets; the same number of winter jackets and toothbrushes; two engine covers; a raft case on the trawler; a ‘Sogo’ spray paint; a few empty packets of fifty rounds of bullets for .34 bore gun with a ‘Made in China’ label; a nylon rope; an empty diesel plastic can of a petrol filling station with a head office address of HO No. 8, Industrial Area, Karachi; a white coloured packet of tissue papers branded ‘Tissue The Senses’ produced by Zik Brothers, Karachi; a 10 kg packet of wheat flour from a Karachi shop called Qamar Food Products, Plot No 3/3, Raita Plot, Shah Faisal Town; a packet of Pakistan-made pickle; a matchbox made in Pakistan; a floor cleaning brush; a two-litre Mountain Dew bottle; two detergent boxes branded PAK — All Purpose Detergent, manufactured in Pakistan; a white 50 kg gunny bag with ‘Pakistan White Refined Sugar, Crop Year: 2007-2008, Expiry Date: December 2009, Net Weight 50.00 KG’ embossed on it; a tube of ‘Touch Me’ shaving cream manufactured in Pakistan; ‘Medicam’ dental gel made in Pakistan; eight razors of Gillette brand; eight pencil cell batteries of Duracell; black quarter pants labelled South-O-Pole, Made in Pakistan; two packets of Nestle milk with marking of Nestle Pakistan Limited; a few black and white namaz scarves with the label ‘Cashmilan Best Qlty, Phone 0614516729′; a few packets of fairness cream; three handcuffs with steel chains and a metal plate with picture of a gun with instructions in Urdu.
These items, which would become a crucial part of the material evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the carnage, made it clear that all the ten terrorists had sailed from Pakistan with supplies of Pakistani origin. The papers onboard the boat showed that it was registered in the name of Kuber with the Gujarat fisheries department with the registration number PBR 2342. The maximum speed of Kuber, which had just one engine, was 8 nautical miles per hour. It requires special skills to ride a fishing trawler and with much difficulty the Coast Guard sailors, who are trained in driving hi-tech marine vessels, drove Kuber to Sassoon docks at Colaba — it took them three hours to cover a distance of 5 nautical miles. At 9.30 pm on 27 November, the Indian Coast Guard handed over Kuber to the Mumbai police.

IN THE MEMORY OF.................

S.A.R.G

LAUNCHED
IN MEMORY OF
MUMBAI INCIDENT

NATIONAL SECURITY GUARD
Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan
Havildar Gajendra Singh

MUMBAI POLICE
Joint Commissioner (ATS) Hemant Karkare
Additional Commissioner Ashoke Kamte
Inspector Vijay Salaskar
Sub-Inspector Bapusaheb Durgude
Sub-Inspector Prakash More
Assistant Sub-Inspector Tukaram Gopal Omble
Constable Ambadas Pawar
Constable Arun Chitte
Constable Jaywant Patil
Constable Vijay Khandekar
Constable Yogesh Patil

OTHER SECURITY PERSONNEL
Inspector Shashank Shinde (Railway Police)
Head Constable M.C.Chodhary (Railway Protection Force)
Home Guard Constable Mukesh Jadhav Constable Rahul Shinde (State Reserve Police Force)

Official launch of S.A.R.G. at Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai

The event aimed at unveiling the research findings done by 4 students of Thadomal Shahani Engineering College on the domain 'lets Beat Terrorism, Preparing Mumbai for the Unthinkable' and launching India’s First Students’ Anti-Terrorism Research Group. The guests for the event were Brigadier Sudhir Sawant, Additional C.P. (Protection and security) Vinay Kargaonkar and Group Captain K.H.Suresh, Indian Air Force.

Once the research findings were unveiled, the guest were asked to comment on the research findings.

K.S.Suresh, Group Captain, Indian Air force, highly appreciated the research work. He even suggested us to explore and do a research over Dam Security.

Additional Commissioner of Police(Protection and Security Deptt.) Vinay Kargaokar said ‘This is the first time that students have shown intrest in studying terrorism and have been able to give practical solutions for each and every aspect of security. We will consider the points which are implementable. I expected some technical details along with something for the common citizen in the research findings, and I am happy to say that both the areas were covered very well'.

Brigadier Sudhir Sawant appreciated the initiative taken by students of management society, TSEC. He said ‘This proves my point that you do not need to depend on experts to find solutions, when young people of India can certainly be trusted to provide effective solutions, as provided in the presentation’.

We the students cum citizens of the country promise to build a better nation.Jai Hind, said the students of anti-terrorism research group while concluding the event.

Book Launch event- '26/11 Mumbai Attacked' by Harinder Baweja, covered by S.A.R.G. Members

'26/11 Mumbai Attacked' is a must read book that has been carefully put together by a very able team of editors at Roli Books. This book is a combined effort of 8 Indians. People like Ashish Khetan, Bachi Karkaria, Chris Khetan, George Koshy, Harsh Baweja, Julio Francis Riberio, Rahul Shivshankar and Harinder Baweja, have put in efforts and have explored terror step by step. The main punch of this book is the interview with LeT’s representative, by the only Indian Journalist Harinder Baweja inside the headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, in Muridke, Pakistan- where Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist, was trained for the attack.

The book was launched at Brihan Mumbai Police Club, VT. The chief guest for the evening was Mrs. Kavita Karkare, wife of Joint Commissioner (ATS) Hemant Karkare. When asked to share her thoughts on stage, she just spoke these lines,

“Kaise kahein who tha desh par mita
Kaise kahein who tha desh ka beta
Rajnitti ki goli se chalni kiya uska seena,
Kaise kahein who tha desh par mita
Kaise kahein who tha desh ka beta

Pelhi goli prashashan ne mari
Doosri goli kasab ki nikli
Teesri goli janta ne mari

Toh Kaise kahein who tha desh par mita
Toh Kaise kahein who tha desh ka beta”

When asked to Mr. Pramod Kapoor, director of Roli Books about his favourite chapter from the book, he choosed to mention the chapter written by Chris Khetan, who pays rich tribute through accounts of meetings with the wives of slain policemen in Mumbai, who lost their lives in the fight against a deadly enemy, sacrificing their future for ours.

Next, Julio Francis Riberio, the former police commissioner of Mumbai and director general of police, Punjab, who is also a co-author for the book, was invited on stage. He highlited the need of self discipline among citizens. In the book, he has written the need of police reforms that make the police force accountable to the law alone rather than the political party in power. According to Mr. Riberio, the role of politicians should be confined to laying down the policy and not to administering or enforcing.


When Harinder Baweja was asked to share her thoughts, she specified that the book takes a full 360-degree look at 26/11. It was perhaps, for the first time, that permission was granted to any Indian Journalist to visit the sprawling campus that liies 40 Km out of Lahore and belived worldwide to be the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), said Harinder.

Harinder Baweja is editor with Tehelka newsmagazine. She was ealier associate editor of India Today in Delhi. A current affairs reporter, she has written extensively on Punjab, Kashmir, Pakistan and Afganistan. She was also in Iraq in mid-2003, reporting on US invasion. Baweja has been writing on terrorism and defence for the last two decades.

Talking about the book, details of intelligence failures are properly mentioned. Several chapters in the book take a long hard look at how the terror unfolded, systematically for over sixty long hours as India was held hostage. The chapters contain hitherto unpublished information on how the operation was planned and executed. Well-known journalists Ashish Khetan and Rahul Shivshankar have painstakingly reconstructed the horror at the three main target sites: hotels Taj and Oberoi and Nariman House and all three chapters give crucial insights into the terrorists’ conversations with their handlers in Pakistan. The book also takes us to read the gripping first hand accounts from hostages who survived near-death.

All in all, the book ‘26/11 Mumbai Attacked’ is a must read book for someone who wishes to prevent another 26/11 and build a strong, secure and happy India.