The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel (26 page)

Wasi: ‘Man, the media is reporting your room number . . .’

Kadam now knew that Wasi was not a gunman. Wasi was their handler. He was controlling, cajoling and advising the gunmen, and watching the assault on TV. The killers in Mumbai were being remotely directed. Kadam scoured the conversation for clues as to
the location of the control – and the gunman, who must be in some hotel room, placing them either in the Trident–Oberoi or the Taj.

ATS needed a shorthand to map the calls. T was for terrorist and C for control or Wasi.

T: ‘Yes, there are cameras here.’ The gunmen had spotted CCTV cameras.

C: ‘Where you can see cameras, fire at them. Keep these things in mind. These things expose you. Where you are? How many guys are there? What condition you all are in?’

Is this their first status update?
, Inspector Kadam wondered.

Wasi had a suggestion.

C: ‘Why don’t you light fires?’

T: ‘We have just started lighting the fires.’

C: ‘Then we will see the flames of the fire rising here.’

Every action had a reaction. And in this digitally enhanced world of terrorism and counter-terrorism, ATS officers were at their desks listening in to the killers, while their controller in an unknown location coached them, watching for evidence of their actions on rolling satellite news channels.

Wasi jollied the gunmen along.

C: ‘Yes, the media is reporting that there is a big operation underway at the Taj. One of your men should keep an eye on the stairs. Methodically, take a hidden, crouching position, wherever there are entry points.’

The ATS had it. This gunman was inside the Taj. Inspector Kadam texted his acting chief.

Wasi had more advice.

C: ‘Fetch alcohol, remove the pillows in the rooms, collect all the cloth, set them on fire, methodically. Set fires on two to three floors. Then you sit down and wait.’

Wasi also reasserted the need for discipline.

C: ‘Whenever the phone call comes, you must attend it, my friend.’

T: ‘OK.’

Wasi explained how things would work.

C: ‘Whatever the media is reporting, we will tell you. That way you can work accordingly.’

T: ‘OK.’

But Wasi still was not content.

C: ‘My brother, you still haven’t thrown the grenade. Throw the grenade towards the seaside. There are many people standing there.’ Like everyone else, he was watching footage of the crowds milling outside the Taj.

T explained: ‘I’m sending the two of them repeatedly, telling them to throw it towards the seaside. They say, “Yes, we will throw it.” But they come back without throwing them.’

There was something surreally familial about the scene, like a father talking to an inattentive child. The gunmen were squabbling like kids tired of their duties.

The gunman whispered to someone sitting next to him: ‘Brother, they’re saying light the fire. Light the fire.’

The line went dead.

Several minutes later, at 01.15, Wasi called again, and Inspector Kadam was listening in.

C: ‘Are you lighting the fires or not?’ Wasi still could see no evidence on TV.

T: ‘We are preparing for the fire. We are gathering clothes.’ It sounded like a juvenile excuse.

C: ‘My friend, light it quickly. One thing that I wanted to ask you was what did you do with the launch?’

Inspector Kadam stopped writing. A launch? So this was how they had come to Mumbai. Later this evidence would be matched with the eyewitness statements from the fishermen’s colony.

T: ‘We left it.’

C: ‘You didn’t open the lock to let the water in?’

T: ‘No. We were rushing and made a mistake. We just left it and ran away.’

Wasi, who did not know yet that Ajmal Kasab had been caught, was worried that the launch might expose the roots of the plot.

T: ‘The waves were crashing in. We saw a boat. Everyone panicked, shouting, “Navy. Navy.” We ran away. Brother Ismail’s satellite got left there too.’

Silence.

Kadam noted down ‘Ismail’, the name of Ajmal’s dead partner, and called his boss. They urgently needed to find the launch and that satellite phone.

Every ten minutes the phone rang. Wasi was on the Taj team’s back.

At 01.25, another call came in.

C: ‘Have the fires been lit yet or not?’ From the tone of his voice, he had not yet forgiven the launch and sat-phone fiasco.

T: ‘Two men have gone, they haven’t returned yet.’

C: ‘Have you collected curtains, pillows?’ Wasi sounded frustrated, as if he were biting his tongue.

T: ‘We have collected everything. We have found a bottle of liquor. We also have hostages with us.’

Kadam texted his boss. It was just as Patil and Rajvardhan had warned. The gunmen had seized hostages. Kadam passed on the nugget and one more: one of the Taj teams had dropped a mobile phone on the ground floor. The cops in the hotel should look out for it.

Wasi wanted more information about the fire.

C: ‘Who has gone to do it?’

T: ‘Ali and Umer have gone.’

Inspector Kadam underscored: Ali and Umer. Two more names, both of them the same as those Ajmal had given. Kadam noted that Ali had to be the terrorist in yellow, one of the two who had come into the Tower lobby with the crowd charging the front door. Umer was the one in black, one of the men who had attacked Leopold’s.

C: ‘How many people do you have as hostages?’

T: ‘There’s only one guy, we’re still sitting with him.’

Kadam knew from Patil that this was K. R. Ramamoorthy, the banker, in 632. What were they planning for him?

But Wasi moved on, summarizing the TV news reports, including rumours and conspiracies, seemingly incredulous at how well things were going.

C: ‘The whole of Mumbai has been terrorized. More than 260 people have been injured, and some officers have been killed too. Fifty
fidayeens
have entered. Firing is happening at thirteen, fourteen places. By the Grace of Allah, the right atmosphere is building up.’ Fear was spreading throughout the city and beyond.

Kadam, who had no idea about the numbers of
fidayeen
, texted his boss: ‘Are there really 50 gunmen in the city?’

C: ‘The media is also saying that some minister is stuck in the hotel. Set fire to the rooms, so that the minister burns and loses his life.’ The TV coverage was proving critical to the assault.

T: ‘Here there are five thousand rooms. Don’t know where he is.’ The gunman sounded sulky.

Wasi had a practical solution.

C: ‘That is not a problem. If by the Grace of Allah you set fire to the entire hotel, then he will burn anyhow.’

Inspector Kadam could hear shots being fired. Wasi heard it too. C: ‘What is it? Are they firing?’

T: ‘Yes. The work has started downstairs.’ Umer and Ali were shooting at something or someone was shooting at them. Kadam wondered if it was the SB2 chief Rajvardhan, firing up from the CCTV room on the second floor. He was always spoiling for a fight.

C: ‘OK, my friend, have you covered the stairs?’ Wasi was thinking tactically.

T: ‘No, we don’t. We are here sitting down.’

The ATS wondered why Commissioner Gafoor was standing the men down when they could advance on 632 now.

Inside room 632, Ram was lying with his nose pressed into the carpet, thinking back to what an old woman had once told him at the Ramkrishna Mission in Chennai – that acceptance was the best part of renunciation. At the time he had not been able to understand. But now, terrified and in agony, he appreciated her message. ‘Whatever
God has for you, accept it rather than fighting it. To accept it is to accept God.’

He heard a commotion out in the corridor and the splintering of a door. Someone cheered and shouted a report about how they had smashed their way into 639, down the corridor. Soon Ram saw two figures dressed in Taj uniforms shuffling into the room. Both were told to lie face down on the bed. ‘Names,’ a gunman shouted. ‘Adil Irani,’ one of the prisoners said. It was the Aquarius waiter, who had fled the carnage on the ground floor and had been hiding in room 639 for three hours.

‘Are you a Muslim?’ a gunman asked Adil. When he nodded, the gunman let rip. ‘You are not a Muslim, you are a blot on jihad. You are a Muslim traitor.’ Adil, who was actually a Parsi, closed his eyes and began to pray, as they laid into him with their guns. They paused. ‘What do you do?’ Adil told the truth: ‘I’m only a waiter.’ They beat him on the legs and back. ‘Come on, now get ready to sacrifice your life for Allah.’ He conjured up his son and daughter’s faces, and those of his wife and mother.

The gunmen moved on to the other prisoners. ‘And you?’ They slapped the second man. ‘Swapnil Shejwal,’ a voice stuttered. ‘I’m a butler, sir.’

At the ATS headquarters, the phone rang again and Inspector Kadam listened to a new voice on the line, introducing himself as Abdul Rehman ‘Bada’. Inspector Kadam knew that this was the red T-shirt, who had entered the Taj via its Tower lobby using the crowd as cover. ‘We have brought two [hostages] along, by the grace of Allah.’

Wasi did not pause: ‘Find out where they are from.’

Abdul Rehman shouted at the hostages: ‘Where are you from?’ Then he addressed Wasi in the control room. ‘Don’t know what the bugger is saying. He says Parel. What is Parel?’

It was a district of Mumbai.

Abdul Rehman said to Wasi: ‘This bastard stays in Bombay. Both of them.’ He turned to shout at someone else: ‘You are also from
here?’ He came back on the phone: ‘The old man is not talking.’ He was referring to the banker Ram, naked on the floor.

In the ATS office they could hear the sounds of scuffling. One of the gunmen was kicking and punching the hostages. It sounded like a rug being aired. Abdul Rehman tried to stop it: ‘Umer, listen to me. Listen to me for a minute.’ Umer, the terrorist in black with the basin haircut, the gunman who had shot up Leopold’s, was thumping Ram and the others. Nothing would make him stop. They groaned and sobbed.

Abdul Rehman screamed at Umer: ‘Bloody
khooti
[female donkey] idiot, listen to me. Come here. Listen. Hey, man, listen to me. You don’t listen to me.’ Umer had worked himself up into a rage, kicking and punching the prisoners. Wasi in the control room tried to intervene: ‘Umer?’ Umer briefly came on the line: ‘Hello, hello, hello?’ He was out of breath. Wasi:
‘Salaam Alaikum.’

But the red mist had not cleared. Umer passed the phone back to Abdul Rehman: ‘He says the prisoners are from Maharashtra.’ Abdul Rehman started shouting at Umer again, while Wasi tried to focus the team. They were at each other’s throats and he needed to get some of them out of the room before they killed the hostages or each other. He had an idea. ‘Light the fire immediately.’ Umer should do it.

Umer would not obey orders. ‘Come here,’ Abdul Rehman shouted at Umer. ‘Our guys don’t listen,’ he complained to Wasi, who had had enough. ‘Make Umer talk to me,’ he snarled. Wasi ordered them to give Umer another mobile, so that Wasi could call him directly. They took Adil’s phone, Abdul Rehman screaming at Umer: ‘Hold this mobile.’

Abdul Rehman tried to programme Irani’s phone with Wasi’s number but he was all fingers and thumbs: ‘What is your number? You tell me.’ When Wasi dictated a number, Inspector Kadam took it down, too. He was nonplussed. The number had an Austrian dialling code. He texted his boss. What did that mean? Had they stumbled across a European-backed terror cell?

Umer at last came on the line and Wasi lost his cool. He passed the phone to someone else in the control room. He needed a break. A new voice tried to talk Umer down.

Inspector Kadam created a cipher for the voice: Handler 2.

Handler 2: ‘Hello, Umer?’

Umer: ‘Yes, this is Umer speaking.’ He sounded surly and not ready to submit. He was like a dog that had savaged a sheep, tasting warm blood for the first time.

The handler read out a phone number. ‘OK, whose number is this?’ Umer asked, spinning out. Handler 2 replied patiently: ‘This is
me.
Call me, man. The phone is in my hand.’ The handler spoke as if he were talking a jumper off a high ledge.

Umer lost it again and began shouting. He sounded like a man scrabbling up a sand dune and repeatedly sliding back down. Wasi in control grabbed the phone, addressing Abdul Rehman in the red shirt: ‘Man, we want to talk to Umer. Tell him there is nothing to worry about.’ Wasi decided on another tactic. He said they had good news to share. The other team had killed the ATS chief. What had the Taj team achieved?

There was silence. Umer now took the phone. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘I am here. He sounded shaky but his curiosity had been pricked. ‘Who was killed?’

Wasi said: ‘The ATS chief for the whole of Bombay has been killed.’

Umer whooped: ‘By the grace of Allah.’

Wasi pressed on: ‘A lot of people are injured. They have been killed. Here and there, there is firing. There are people dying everywhere. Everything is on fire. At this time, your target is most important. The maximum media coverage is on the Taj hotel. Brother Qahafa wants to greet you.’ It was Qahafa the Bull, the Lashkar trainer, whose nephew, Fahadullah, was in the assault too, presently holed up in the Trident–Oberoi. Inspector Kadam wrote down Qahafa/Handler 2.

Qahafa showed all of his experience in the field, speaking calmly and quietly. ‘Brother,’ he said. ‘Allah should accept your service. The wounds of a lot of people have been healed. The prayer you were taught, don’t forget it. Wherever you are sitting, pray thrice. Three times, with full faith, not just half-hearted.’

‘OK.’ Umer had been stilled by the lion tamer. ‘You are facing the sea?’ Qahafa asked. He was playing with Google Earth in the control room in Malir Town, and matching it to the TV images had spotted something. ‘There is a building on the road at the junction. There are two places there where the police are standing. Go and fire on them. And give the other brothers my greetings. Stay strong. You have touched the world. Heaven, by the grace of Allah, is much better than this.’

Inside room 632, the banker Ram heard voices in the corridor: ‘Who have you got?’ And then the answer: ‘I am from a village, please leave me be.’ It was another hostage, Sunil Jadhav, a Taj employee who worked as a bellboy, and who was thrown to the floor, shouting: ‘I am not a rich man, sir.’ Ram then heard a fourth man pleading. He identified himself as Raju Bagle, from housekeeping. The kidnappers tore strips of sheets and bound both men’s hands and ankles.