{"id":5756,"date":"2014-10-24T20:14:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T14:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/?p=5756"},"modified":"2014-10-24T20:14:23","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T14:44:23","slug":"%e0%a4%95%e0%a5%83%e0%a4%a4%e0%a4%98%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%a8-%e0%a4%ad%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b0%e0%a4%a4-%e0%a4%af%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b8%e0%a5%80%e0%a4%ae-%e0%a4%ad%e0%a4%9f%e0%a4%95%e0%a4%b2-%e0%a4%95%e0%a5%8b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/?p=5756","title":{"rendered":"\u0915\u0943\u0924\u0918\u094d\u0928 \u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924 : \u092f\u093e\u0938\u0940\u092e \u092d\u091f\u0915\u0932 \u0915\u094b \u092a\u0915\u095c\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0947 \u0905\u0938\u0932\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0928\u0940 : Thankless India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u0915\u0943\u0924\u0918\u094d\u0928 \u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924 : \u092f\u093e\u0938\u0940\u092e \u092d\u091f\u0915\u0932 \u0915\u094b \u092a\u0915\u095c\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0947 \u0905\u0938\u0932\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0928\u0940<\/div>\n
\u0905\u092e\u093f\u0924 \u0936\u093e\u0939 \u0915\u094b \u0915\u093f\u0938\u0940 \u092d\u0940 \u0924\u0930\u0939 \u0907\u0936\u0930\u0924 \u0915\u0947\u0938 \u092e\u0948\u0902 \u092b\u0902\u0938\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0947 \u0932\u093f\u090f \u0906\u0924\u0941\u0930 \u0915\u093e\u0902\u0917\u094d\u0930\u0947\u0938 \u0928\u0947 \u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924\u0940\u092f \u0907\u0928\u094d\u0924\u0947\u0932\u093f\u091c\u0947\u0928\u094d\u0938 \u092c\u094d\u092f\u0942\u0930\u094b \u0915\u094b \u0924\u094b \u0932\u0917\u092d\u0917 \u0916\u0924\u094d\u092e\u00a0 \u0915\u0930\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0940 \u0915\u0917\u093e\u0930 \u092a\u0930 \u0932\u093e \u0916\u095c\u093e \u0915\u093f\u092f\u093e . \u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924 \u092e\u0948\u0902 \u0926\u094b \u0938\u094c \u092e\u094c\u0924\u094b\u0902 \u0915\u0947 \u0932\u093f\u090f \u091c\u093f\u092e\u094d\u092e\u0947\u0935\u093e\u0930\u00a0\u092f\u093e\u0938\u0940\u0928 \u00a0\u092d\u091f\u0915\u0932 …\u0915\u094b \u0928\u0947\u092a\u093e\u0932 \u092e\u0948\u0902 \u092a\u0915\u095c\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0928\u0940 \u0938\u091a \u0915\u092e \u091c\u093e\u0938\u0942\u0938\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0928\u0940 \u0905\u0927\u093f\u0915 \u0932\u0917\u0924\u0940 \u0939\u0948 . \u092a\u0930 \u0909\u0938 \u0916\u0924\u0930\u0928\u093e\u0915 \u092e\u093f\u0936\u0928 \u0915\u094b \u0905\u0902\u091c\u093e\u092e \u0926\u0947\u0928\u0947 \u0935\u093e\u0932\u094b\u0902 \u0915\u093e \u0939\u093e\u0932 \u0938\u0941\u0928\u0947 \u0924\u094b \u0935\u093e\u0939\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0935\u0924 \u092f\u093e\u0926 \u0906\u0924\u0940 \u0939\u0948
\n\u0936\u0939\u0940\u0926\u094b\u0902 \u0915\u0940 \u091a\u093f\u0924\u093e\u0913\u0902 \u092a\u0930 \u0932\u0917\u0947\u0902\u0917\u0947 \u0939\u0930 \u092c\u0930\u0938 \u092e\u0947\u0932\u0947<\/div>\n
\u0935\u0924\u0928 \u092a\u0930 \u092e\u0930\u0928\u0947 \u0935\u093e\u0932\u094b\u0902 \u0915\u093e \u092f\u0939\u0940 \u092c\u093e\u0915\u093f \u0928\u093f\u0936\u093e\u0928 \u0939\u094b\u0917\u093e<\/div>\n
\u092a\u093f\u091b\u0932\u0947 \u092a\u093e\u0902\u091a \u0938\u093e\u0932 \u0939\u0930 \u0924\u0930\u092b \u0918\u094b\u0930 \u0926\u0947\u0936\u0926\u094d\u0930\u094b\u0939\u093f\u092f\u094b\u0902 \u0915\u0940 \u0938\u0930\u0915\u093e\u0930 \u0925\u0940 \u092a\u0930 \u0915\u094d\u092f\u093e \u0909\u0928\u0915\u0947 \u0938\u093e\u0925 \u0928\u094d\u092f\u093e\u092f \u0939\u094b\u0917\u093e ? \u092f\u0939 \u092a\u0942\u0930\u0940 \u0915\u0939\u093e\u0928\u0940 \u092a\u095d\u0947\u0902<\/div>\n
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Thankless India : Arrest of Yasin\u00a0Bhatkal From Nepal<\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.openthemagazine.com\/article\/nation\/thankless-india?@Openthemag#.VEouChzpbrU.twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n
An Indian tourist leaned thoughtfully on the metal balustrade outside a bar in Nepal\u2019s scenic town of Pokhra. Clad in Bermuda shorts and a bright bush-shirt, the man could have been any of the thousands of Indian tourists who throng this town. The watering hole overlooked a lake, bordered by verdant hills. Hired speedboats driven by tourists sped past him. It wasn\u2019t the foothills of the Himalayas and the salubrious weather that had brought him here. Inside the bar, two of his colleagues waited, trying to appear casual but with urgent matters on their mind. Two others of the group were in a different part of town, sipping Coke while awaiting that vital signal for action.
\nThis was an undercover stakeout for India\u2019s most wanted terrorist Yasin Bhatkal. It was the denouement of a six- month long operation to capture the elusive man known as the \u2018Ghost Who Bombs\u2019.
\nThe man outside the bar was anxious. As head of the Special Operations Group (SOG) unit charged with the task, he knew there was no room for error. It was, after all, a foreign country. To solicit the cooperation of the Nepal police and intelligence services, it was important to be certain of the target\u2019s identity. Failure was not an option.
\nIT was on 13 August 2013 that the undercover tourist expedition began, launched in Patna by the Bihar unit of the SOG. The go-ahead was given by the Joint Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), stationed in Bihar\u2019s capital, at a meeting held with his deputies. The meeting took place in the backdrop of an alleged witchhunt of IB officials who were part of the operation that busted the terror module of which Ishrat Jehan was a part. The Joint Director wanted to ensure that the low morale of his forces did not come in the way of their work.
\nThe leader of the team that led the Nepal operation was among those present at the meeting. In the thick of the meeting, he received a phone call on his mobile. Recognising the caller, one of his key \u2018human assets\u2019 in Nepal, he rushed out into the corridor to take the call. The informer had received news from one of his men that a man resembling the \u2018suspect\u2019 in a photograph given by the IB had been seen in Pokhra. However, the suspect was clean-shaven and had close cropped hair, unlike the man in the picture. But the eyes matched. According to the informer, the suspect had referred to his wife, a teacher in Delhi (his wife did live in Delhi and was being shadowed by Intelligence sleuths), his parents in Dubai (they had been in Dubai, running a laundry, but had returned since to Bhatkal in Karnataka), and was posing as a Unani doctor.
\nPosing as a Unani doctor was one of Bhatkal\u2019s favourite disguises. In Dharbanga, Bihar, where he had set up a sleeper Indian Mujahideen (IM) cell, he had assumed the same identity. In Nepal, he was Dr Yusuf.
\n+++
\nBy now, the officer was certain they had their man. He rushed back in to inform the Joint Director. An Operations man, the Joint Director was convinced. He asked for time to call his superiors in Delhi\u2019s IB establishment. But the IB bosses were not convinced. The Joint Director reconvened the meeting in Patna to tell the officers of the disappointing response from the national capital. But the officer who had got the lead from Nepal was not one to give up easily, and took it up with the Joint Director again after the meeting. \u201cSir, my source is sure, the information looks authentic, most of the details match. We have to take this chance, to pass it up would be suicidal,\u201d he told him. \u201cWe have to go to Nepal, even if we are jailed [for it].\u201d After a pause, the Joint Director replied: \u201cYou\u2019re right. But you have to pose as tourists.\u201d The Joint Director knew he was sticking his neck out, as were his men.
\nHe had sought permission for an official trip to Nepal, but his IB bosses had been curt. \u201cThere will be fifty pieces of information. Will you send out fifty teams?\u201d The Joint Director had another thought in his head: the Bihar unit had been keen on nabbing Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibapa, alias Yasin Bhatkal, particularly after the Bodh Gaya blasts, which bore the imprint of the IM but had not been confirmed thus far. \u201cWe have to take this as a challenge,\u201d he concurred.
\nThere were many precautions to be taken, especially since this would not be an official expedition. The Joint Director cautioned his men: \u201cDon\u2019t take any ID cards with you that will reveal your identity. Deposit [them] at the border. Remember, if you are caught, you will be jailed. If you fail at the task, things will be very bad. You\u2019ll have to cool your heels in some jail in Nepal. And I will be repatriated to my parent cadre for my role in this expedition.\u201d
\nThings began to move at lightning speed after that tacit approval. A special unit of five men was put together. \u201cMay we take East Champaran SP Vinay Kumar into confidence about the operation?\u201d asked the team leader. Kumar, a well-connected police officer, often held coordination meetings with his Nepali counterpart and would be of help if things went askew. Things were finally falling into place.
\n+++
\nNepal had always attracted thousands of international tourists, including Indians, every year. Since the 90s, though, it had become a safe haven for criminals and terrorists fleeing the Indian police. The SOG, which was set up in 1999 under the IB at the Centre by its then chief Ajit Doval, had since the mid-2000s turned its focus to Naxal leaders; by 2011, it had nabbed Kobad Gandhi, a Doon School alumnus whose association with the Maoist cause blew the lid off the myth that extremists were mainly recruited from among the underprivileged. The SOG in Bihar, however, was directed by the government to focus on fundamentalist Muslim organisations whose operatives had begun to use Nepal\u2014which shares a porous border with Bihar at Raxaul\u2014for rest and recuperation. The SOG\u2019s anti-terror squad was entrusted with the task of tracking and ferretting out the terrorists wanted for a variety of bomb blasts and killings over the years across India. Accordingly, it had cultivated a network of informers in Nepal, especially in towns with high Muslim populations.
\nIt was clear that any assignment by the squad had to have a fair amount of secrecy, involving as it did cross- border terrorist activities and a friendly neighbour such as Nepal. There was also a strategic imperative to keep the operation under cover from police forces in India for security reasons. At Raxaul, for instance, the border post and town police were notorious for their complicity in the smuggling of a variety of goods across the border, including subsidised foodgrains and fertilisers (including urea, used in the making of explosives). Information leaks would be hard to contain.
\n+++
\nThe leader of the team was chosen on account of his ability to think on his feet. Bhatkal, according to an IB officer, was \u201cas slippery as Houdini\u201d because he had perfected the art of avoiding detection. He constantly changed his sartorial style and appearance (clean shaven, wispy bearded, full bearded, moustached). He would also change his mobile phone often and use it only for a few seconds at a time to avoid being tracked and his location identified by intelligence agencies. The IM may have used the internet to spread its message and contact media organisations after successful operations, but the dreaded head of the outfit avoided email. Bhatkal also changed addresses frequently, often moving into nondescript rooms hired in sparsely populated areas and colonies that were less likely to be under surveillance.
\nIn 2013, the Indian Government announced a Rs 3.5 crore reward for details of Bhatkal\u2019s location or for his capture. At 30, he was considered responsible for more than 220 deaths countrywide. He figured on the \u2018Most Wanted\u2019 list of 12 states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. For the five-member SOG team, it was a hunt for a very high-value target.
\nThe informer had told the SOG commando that a man who could be Bhatkal was sighted at Routahat in Bara district, 40 km from Raxaul, where the \u2018suspect\u2019 had the shelter of one Maulana Moinuddin Ansari at a madrassa near Gaur. According to the informer, the \u2018suspect\u2019 spoke with a \u201cSouth Indian accent\u201d and had moved to Pokhra.
\nThe SOG team leader got in touch with the IB head quarters at New Delhi, but got a dressing down. Delhi\u2019s officialdom was convinced that Bhatkal was in Pakistan, and had no takers for the hot lead from Nepal. \u201cThis is so demoralising for field officers who put their heart and soul into their work,\u201d a police official tells Open.
\nThe demoralisation had mostly stemmed from the Ishrat Jehan encounter case, for which the IB was hauled up along with the Gujarat Police, some of whose top officers were believed to have planned and executed the entire operation. The team leader and his field officers faced a specific problem in the case of Yasin Bhatkal. Wanted for his alleged role in virtually every terror attack since 2007, he was known to have not only masterminded several of the bomb blasts in various parts of the country in that period, but also planted some explosives himself.
\nThe \u2018Ghost Who Bombs\u2019 had given the slip to Intelligence units in so many Indian states that few believed he could be nabbed. There had been a few close brushes. In December 2009, Bhatkal, who was wanted for bombings in Delhi and Hyderabad, was picked by the Kolkata Police in connection with a theft case. But he managed to convince his captors that he was a local resident called Bulla Mallik, and walked out of the Shakespeare Sarani police station. His next bomb blast came soon after.
\nIn 2008, Bhatkal and some of his colleagues in the IM\u2014 which was declared a terrorist outfit in June 2010 by India and in 2011 by the US\u2014were located through a tip-off in Chikmaglur in Karnataka. But the police delayed the raid and Bhatkal got away again. In 2010, the CCTV camera footage of the German Bakery blast case identified him in Pune.
\nIn 2010, in a big goof-up, the Karnataka Police had nabbed Yasin Bhatkal\u2019s younger brother, Samad, at Mangalore Airport and the UPA Government prematurely announced the capture of the country\u2019s \u2018most wanted\u2019 man. However, then Home Minister P Chidambaram had to admit that it was a case of mistaken identity and released Bhatkal\u2019s brother. These developments were enough to make the IB\u2019s higher authorities in New Delhi balk at any claim that Bhatkal had been traced.
\n+++
\nIt was the third week of August 2013. The myths around Bhatkal did not dampen the team\u2019s confidence. The plan was in place. The five of them would leave for Nepal in a Mahindra Bolero posing as tourists. There was only one constraint: money. As a junior official, the team leader earned only a modest salary. \u201cAlmost 30 per cent of our salaries is spent on operations. We don\u2019t get paid enough. We have meagre savings. If we still persist with enthusiasm in our assignments, it is primarily because many of us are passionate about our work. We move out of our comfort zone often in the line of duty,\u201d in the words of an SOG officer.
\nThe team leader obtained a Rs 40,000 loan from a friend to buy Nepali SIM cards and cover the other expenses of the team. By 2 pm on 20 August, they reached Motihari and sought out SP Vinay Kumar. They filled him in with the broad plan without mentioning specifics, and found him keen to join their mission. This suited the unit perfectly well. The SP arranged two more vehicles for the men to use. Later that day, the group left for Pokhra\u2014a 280 km journey\u2014from Birganj, just a few kilometres across the border from Raxaul.
\nAmong the first things the SOG team did was call the Nepali informer and ask him to meet them at Birganj to work out details of the plan. This was a risky move which could have backfired, and the decision was taken only after weighing the pros and cons. The team leader had never met the informer before, only spoken to him over the phone. It could have been a trap set for the SOG. But it was a call that they had to make.
\nAt no point was it let slip that Vinay Kumar was also travelling with the team. Things went smoothly at the meeting and the informer left Birganj for Pokhra soon after, reaching early the next morning to await the arrival of the team. The SOG team, along with the senior police official, reached Pokhra the next evening and checked into Mount View Hotel. All the necessary logistical support was arranged by Vinay Kumar, who had by then been told about the target. The Nepali informer came to Mount View on 21 August to discuss details. After breakfast that morning, the men, in Bermuda shorts and shades, hired two motorcycles and set out for watchpoints they had chalked out. The stakeout to nab the nation\u2019s most dreaded terrorist was about to begin, and there was no saying how long it would take.
\n+++
\nIt was also on 21 August that the team received information that Bal Bahadur Thapa aka Abdullah, a former Indian Army soldier who lived in Burhi Bazaar, a few kilometrer from Pokhra, knew the location of Yasin Batkal\u2019s main hideout. A convert to Islam, Thapa\u2014 who, incidentally, was detained by the Nepal Police during Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s recent visit\u2014 was known to \u2018look after\u2019 Bhatkal. The team asked the informer to meet up with Abdullah at 1.30 pm, just before the afternoon Muslim call to prayer. The informer, it was decided, would request Abdullah to take him to a place where he could offer namaaz.
\nFor the men of the SOG team, time stood still while they waited. Finally, the phone rang. It was the informer, confirming that Abdullah had agreed to take him to a place where he could offer namaaz. On two bikes, the men followed the informer, who was in a car. At Burhi Bazaar, they deliberately slackened but kept tailing the car at a discreet distance. They saw the informer draw close to a man, presumably Abdullah, and hold a conversation for about 10 minutes. They then left together, leaving the two SOG team members scrambling to tail the car.
\nThe convoy of vehicles ground to a halt some two kilometres ahead. They had reached Oregaon Chowk, and before them stood a small house. Located by the highway, this house gave its occupants a vantage point from which to watch out for anyone approaching, and seemed like a good location for a man in hiding. The team stayed put on the highway to assess the situation. While they lay in wait, they heard a motorbike approach. The pillion rider seemed somewhat familiar. Could he be their quarry?
\nThe pictures of Bhatkal they had downloaded off the net did not completely match. The motorcycle drove right in through an entrance at the back. This was Bhatkal\u2019s residence, they were convinced. Still, they had to get conclusive proof that this was indeed the case.
\n+++
\nThe exhilaration of locating what could be Bhatkal\u2019s hideout threatened to fizzle out the very next day. Abdullah was avoiding the informer. The SOG men called the informer in for a debriefing session. According to the new plan, he was to pretend he had a medical problem and wanted to be treated by a Unani doctor. He would go with Abdullah to the doctor\u2019s chamber, collect a voice sample, observe the surroundings, note the number of people around, and, if possible, check whether they slept on floor kalims or beds.
\nThe ruse worked. Hours after his appointment, the informer called SOG members to say that the Unani doctor appeared to be Bhatkal. \u201cHe is fair and his Hindi is good, but he appears to be a Kashmiri, not a South Indian.\u201d That didn\u2019t sound quite right. This input triggered another net search for identifiers\u2014such as birthmarks and scars\u2014that are difficult to disguise. They zeroed in on three specific details: Bhatkal had an obstinate tuft of hair on his forehead, a few strands of unruly hair that curled backwards. Two, Bhatkal had a prominent scar on his forehead. Three, he had a pronouncedly protruding upper set of teeth. Whether the man in question was a Kashmiri or South Indian could be ascertained from the voice sample that the informer would capture, which could be put to phonetic analysis for inflexions and diphthongs in his speech. The informer was given an additional behavioural tick to check for: Bhatkal was known to remove his headscarf only for the ritual ablutions before offering namaaz.
\nNone of this could be checked in a hurry. The informer had to be handled carefully so that he did not blow the operation prematurely.
\nSurveillance, meanwhile, continued.
\nIt was soon discovered that Bhatkal had created a network of 20 to 25 young men who were regular visitors to his residence. Oregaon Chowk was sparsely populated and tea shops were hard to come by, but there were quite a few bars. These served as watchpoints for the SOG members. The exercise would demand patience, they knew, but by 24 August, they had a breakthrough: the informer, posing as a patient, had used his mobile\u2019s \u2018record\u2019 mode to obtain a clear voice sample of the Unani doctor. The team set about examining each inflexion and vowel sound. At the end of the exercise, they were sure it was Bhatkal\u2019s voice. The speech in Hindi had a southwest Maharashtrian overhang. The team was convinced.
\nThat night, the team met at the hotel for a stock taking session. The team leader called his Joint Director in Patna at 8 pm to give him the good news. \u201cAre you sure? Shall I talk to the DIB?\u201d the Joint director asked. \u201cSir, 200 per cent,\u201d he replied.
\nThe men, however, told the Joint Director that there could be difficulty in getting the \u2018target\u2019 across the border to India , given the checkpoints en route. \u201cSir, if Delhi rejects our proposal to nab Bhatkal, we are ready to lift him [anyway],\u201d the team leader told the Joint Director. In police speak, \u2018lift\u2019 could involve a range of methods: from drugging and gagging the suspect to rendering him unconscious for transportation, or just plain threatening him into accompanying them.
\nTo be on the safe side, however, they decided to take an Additional Director of the IB in Delhi, another operations man, into confidence on the details of their operation. \u201cI hope you are certain. If we are wrong, we will be crucified,\u201d he cautioned, before he picked up the hotline and informed his higher-ups that the Bihar SOG team was ready to act. \u201cIf the suspect proves not to be our man, we will set him free,\u201d he assured the IB top brass.
\nThe Centre got in touch with the Nepal government, a coordinated effort to arrest \u2018a wanted criminal\u2019 was immediately agreed upon, a call was placed to an official attached to the Indian Embassy in Nepal, and an Indian Police officer posted there swung into action.
\n+++
\nOn the morning of 25 August, a four-member Nepali police team arrived to coordinate efforts with the SOG and hand it a set of conditions:
\n1.Don\u2019t pick up the suspect from a crowded place such as a bazaar or a bus station.
\n2.Don\u2019t accompany the Nepali cops during the operation
\n3.The Indian team will not be anywhere near the building once the house is identified.
\nIf the \u2018target\u2019 turned out to be a Nepali citizen, the SOG members were cautioned, the repercussions on India- Nepal ties could be severe, given the anti-India sentiment prevalent in the country at the time.
\nTo retain secrecy, the Indian team did not divulge any details on Bhatkal to the Nepali police. Only the house was pointed out for the latter to go ahead and make the arrest.
\nThe SOG men would wait at a distance. From their surveillance point, they spotted another person in the house: a handsome man who they quickly identified as Asadullah Akhtar, also known as \u2018Haddi\u2019, an al Qaeda operative. \u2018Haddi\u2019 was the main suspect in the Varanasi, Pune, Zaveri Bazaar (Mumbai) and Ahmedabad blasts. Bhatkal\u2019s senior in the IM hierarchy, he was a hardened operative trained in Afghanistan, and the Indian Government had a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head.
\n\u2018Haddi\u2019 was also reputed to be highly intelligent. Sensing something amiss, he ventured out of the house to look around Oregaon Chowk, and, at one point, noticing an SOG man, even began trailing him. To shake the al Qaeda man off, the SOG man had to duck into a hair salon closeby\u2014he emerged clean-shaven, his beard gone, but all the safer for it.
\nThere were disappointments in store. The Nepali police officers, after some sniffing around, gave up and left Oregaon Chowk. Meanwhile, Vinay Kumar had to rush back to Bihar; communal clashes had broken out in Motihari on the eve of Krishna Janmashtami. The SP took one of the Scorpios with him, leaving only one vehicle for the SOG men. A sense of gloom settled in.
\n+++
\nThe silver lining appeared on 27 August. All the while, officials of the Indian Government had been talks with their Nepali counterparts to convince them of the need to catch the suspect. The nod finally came, but with a rider: the operation could only be conducted at night.
\nThe next day, nature seemed to be conspiring against the SOG members. At around 4 pm, it started raining heavily. Later that evening, they had to return their hired motorcycles. With only one vehicle, there was no question of accompanying the Nepali police.
\nBut time was running out, so the SOG team asked the Nepal police to conduct the raid on that very day. They watched from a distance as the local police finally entered the house on the highway off Oregaon Chowk at 8.30 pm. At 10 pm, the SOG team got a call from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The IPS man on the line was furious. \u201cYou are picking up an innocent man,\u201d he yelled, \u201cThe man you staked out is a turbine engineer.\u201d
\nThe operation was at threat of being jeopardised. One of the men in the team replied: \u201cIf you are an IPS man, you should smell a rat when a turbine engineer practices Unani medicine and calls himself a doctor. Isn\u2019t this man\u2019s name Dr Yusuf? Please ask the Nepali police to bring him out. We will identify him.\u201d
\nA little calmer by now, the embassy official agreed to convey the request to the Nepali police. \u201cOur men had a strong suspicion by now that the delay in nabbing Dr Yusuf was a deliberate ploy,\u201d an Intelligence official familiar with the details of the Bhatkal operation maintains.
\nAt 10.10 pm, the two suspects in the house were finally brought out. An SOG team officer yanked Dr Yusuf\u2019s beard and swung him around, ignoring the man\u2019s loud protests.
\nIt did not take long for the doctor to admit who he was. He was Yasin Bhatkal and \u2018Dr Yusuf\u2019 was just the latest of the dozen different identities he had taken on.
\nTop authorities in Delhi were informed of the developments in Pokhra. The SOG men were anxious to get hold of Bhatkal\u2019s possessions, including his laptop, before anything could be erased or deleted.
\nAgain, the Nepali police ordered the men to keep a good distance from their vehicle in view of the many security checks at the border. They would ferry the two nabbed terrorist masterminds to the border, where the SOG men could take them into custody.
\nThe SOG men rushed back to their hotel to grab their bags and rush to the border. It was already close to midnight and impossible to find a cab. But the hotel\u2019s management helped them reach Narayangarh, where they were joined by Vinay Kumar, who had forked out close to Rs 80,000 of his own money to fund the operation.
\n+++
\nThe SOG team reached the Indian border territory at around 6 am on 29 August, and took Bhatkal and \u2018Haddi\u2019 to a forest guesthouse in Bettiah, Bihar, for a thorough interrogation. For this, it would be best if the arrests were kept under wraps. In New Delhi, however, the Home Ministry andNational Investigation Agency (NIA), which had no role in the operation, were in a scramble to take credit for catching India\u2019s most wanted terrorist. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde made a short statement on the country\u2019s biggest terrorist catch of recent times, setting off a media frenzy.
\nBhatkal and \u2018Haddi\u2019 were later moved to the East Champaran district headquarters of Motihari for further questioning. Bihar\u2019s Additional Director General of Police Rajesh Chandra rushed from Patna to join the exercise. Curiously, shortly afterwards, he was called back to Patna by the Nitish Kumar government.
\nEach member of the SOG team had put his career at risk for the operation, but it was clearly worth every bit of effort. Bhatkal was wanted for 17 bomb blast cases, including those of the German Bakery in Pune, Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai, the High Court and Jama Masjid in Delhi, and others in Jaipur, Varanasi and Faizabad.
\nBy nabbing the two terrorists, the team had managed to neutralise both IM factions: one, Pakistan controlled, headed by Bhatkal, and the other, SIMI-controlled, headed by \u2018Haddi\u2019. And they did it almost entirely through the dint of their own effort, without needing to fire a single bullet. But to their dismay, New Delhi and Patna had little to offer them in acknowledgement.
\nPOST SCRIPT
\n– Bhatkal is currently lodged in prison No 2 of Tihar Jail.
\n– The SOG team leader got a letter of commendation and a cash reward Rs 1 lakh, but was not considered for a gallantry award. The then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde issued a notification offering him a reward of Rs 3.5 lakh, but the Ministry issued a corrigendum shortly withdrawing it, saying that it was his duty.
\n– Joint Director, IB, Patna, got a commendation certificate from Director, IB.
\n– Vinay Kumar is now the Superintendent of Police of Saran, Bihar. See More<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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