Atal Bihari Vajpayee, one of the most venerated leaders of the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), became the tenth prime minister of India in 1996.
However, his first term was destined to last a mere thirteen days.
Subsequently, in May 1998, he was instrumental in forming a National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) by bringing together several regional parties
that supported the BJP from outside. The NDA fought the general elections
the same year and Vajpayee returned as prime minister. But, yet again,
within a year, the government collapsed when an ally based in Tamil Nadu
withdrew its support. Nonetheless, with the support of a few more regional
parties, the NDA proceeded to win the 1999 elections with a comfortable
majority and finally completed its term, which ended in 2004. Vajpayee
thus became the first prime minister from outside the Indian National
Congress to serve a full five-year term.
The NDA government under Vajpayee witnessed many crises after it
came to power on 13 October 1999. Within a little over two months, on 24
December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to New
Delhi was hijacked by five Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and flown to
Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The hijackers demanded the release
of dangerous terrorists as ransom. Terror masterminds such as Maulana
Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, all held in
Indian prisons, were named. The week-long stand-off between the hijackers
and the Government of India concluded on the last day of the millennium
when the government wilted under media and public pressure and
acquiesced to the hijackers’ demands. The then external affairs minister,
Jaswant Singh, rather shamefacedly, flew to Kandahar with the three
terrorists and handed them over to the hijackers. The IC 814 passengers
were released and were flown home on 31 December 1999. In this terror
episode there was one tragic fatality. Rupin Katyal, a twenty-five-year-old
honeymooner, succumbed to injuries inflicted on him by the hijackers at the
Amritsar airport, where the plane had stopped for refuelling.
A year later, on 22 December 2000, the Red Fort in Delhi, a symbol of
India’s pluralism and unity, was attacked by the terror group LeT, leaving
three soldiers and a civilian dead. More than a terror attack on an iconic
monument, it was a serious portent of bigger things to come, including the
attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, which brought India
and Pakistan to the brink of war.
But seven months before the attack on the Parliament, in March 2001, a
crisis hit the Vajpayee government that severely embarrassed it. Tehelka
(which means ‘sensation’ in Hindi) was a website started by two intrepid
journalists, namely, Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal, in 2000. On 14
March 2001, videos of its first major sting investigation, called ‘Operation
West End’, were broadcast on prime-time television, showing the then BJP
president, senior army officers and NDA members accepting bribes from
journalists posing as agents and businessmen. The president of the BJP had
to resign and subsequently, so did the then defence minister. These events
left the BJP red-faced and its alliance on the brink of implosion.
Furthermore, Operation West End and its aftermath prompted Pakistan’s
spy agency, the ISI, to contrive a diabolical plan to destabilize India. The
ISI was closely monitoring the situation in India and reasoned that if Tejpal
and Bahal, the co-authors of Operation West End, were to be assassinated,
the blame would fall on the ruling party. Every finger would point to the
BJP for the murder of the two journalists who had exposed their party
president. In the wake of the raging controversy that would follow,
alongside negative public opinion, the tenuous majority that the NDA had
in the Parliament would be breached and the NDA government would once
again fall. India would be plunged into political instability.
Characteristically, only the ISI could have hatched such an insidious
conspiracy against India.
But, who would carry out the job for the ISI? Who would pull the trigger
on Tejpal and Bahal? ISI’s experience had taught it that using local criminal
dons equipped with trained manpower, local knowledge, weaponry and so
on was the best bet. For instance, the ISI had put the leading lights of the
Mumbai and Gujarat underworlds to good use to carry out serial blasts in
Mumbai in 1993. The terror attack had taken nearly three hundred lives and
damaged properties worth millions. However, leading mafia dons, namely,
Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Mohammad Dossa, Abu Salem and Abdul
Lateef—the main architects of the serial blasts—were either in hiding in
Pakistan or behind bars. The ISI therefore had to look for someone else,
someone equally resourceful and capable, but not yet on the radar of the
Indian authorities.
The ISI’s ‘talent scouts’ looked eastwards in India and zeroed in on a
crime supremo—a monster par excellence—from Bihar who was capable,
still at large and fairly active. Not only that, he was a serving member of
Parliament (MP). His name: Mohammad Shahabuddin (MS).
MS is a criminal-turned-politician whose equal would be difficult to find
in the annals of crime. Yes, you may find offenders with darker criminal
involvements, criminals who are far more cruel and devious; but, in my
nearly four-decade-long police career, I haven’t heard of anyone who
alongside his career in crime has been as successful in politics as MS. He
had served as a member of Bihar’s legislative assembly for two terms in the
1990s and as an MP for four consecutive terms. His political career thrived
until the long arm of the law finally caught up with him.
Born on 10 May 1967 in Partapur village in the Siwan district of Bihar,
MS entered the world of crime in 1986 at the age of nineteen. Thereafter, he
was involved in several cases of murder, attempts to murder and other grave
crimes. An example of one such gruesome crime is the case in which he
was accused of killing three brothers by giving them an acid bath. The
police declared him a habitual offender and opened his history sheet.
Notwithstanding his criminal record, he entered politics and contested the
Bihar assembly elections in 1990 and won. He was elected again as a
member of the legislative assembly (MLA) in 1995. His political stature
grew when he was given a ticket by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president,
Lalu Prasad Yadav, in the parliamentary elections of 1996. Given his reign
of terror in Siwan—his home constituency—he won the elections
comfortably and became an MP. Riding the wave of his political success, he
became a law unto himself in Siwan and often came into confrontation with
the local police and government officials. He assaulted policemen with
impunity and is known to have fired at them on several occasions.
In March 2001, Sanjiv Kumar, a police officer who had gone to serve a
warrant of arrest to MS’s party worker, Manoj Kumar Pappu, was slapped
by the don. MS’s men brutally beat up several policemen accompanying
Sanjiv Kumar. The cops had to beat a hasty retreat but soon regrouped.
Reinforcements were called, some even from the neighbouring state of
Uttar Pradesh. The Siwan police, with an adequate force at their command,
raided MS’s fortress-like house. In the extensive armed exchange that
followed, two policemen and eight of MS’s men were killed. Three AK-47s
and other automatic weapons were found near the dead bodies of MS’s
men. MS, along with those of his men still alive, escaped, setting fire to
three police jeeps and firing continuously to cover their movement. Neither
MS nor Manoj Kumar could be arrested. After this episode, several more
cases were filed against MS, but he always absconded.
It was precisely at this time, when MS was on the run, that the ISI
decided to contact him and task him with the killing of the Tehelka duo. MS
had been in touch with Kashmiri separatists and ISI agents for some time,
as was publicly disclosed in a press conference by the then director general
of police (DGP), Bihar. Soon after the DGP made this announcement, he
was posted to an innocuous assignment; such was MS’s political clout.
An ISI agent based in Bangladesh, code-named Jain Saheb, was in touch
with a stooge in Nepal: Salim Mian Ansari. Ansari was a prominent mafia
leader and a former minister of Nepal. He belonged to the Communist Party
of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist). Two conspiratorial meetings were
held at Salim Mian’s Nepal residence sometime around January–February
2001. MS and Jain Saheb were invited. MS, aware of what the meeting was
about, had taken a sharpshooter, Bhupender Tyagi, with him. Tyagi hailed
from Uttar Pradesh. MS thought he would be an ideal handyman to
accompany him.
Before proceeding with the story, it would be pertinent to give a brief
background on Tyagi. He was a native of Kisola village in the Bulandshahr
district of Uttar Pradesh. His father was a cloth merchant and ran a
reasonably successful business. A local goon wanted to extort ‘rangdari tax’
(protection money) from the cloth merchant, which he refused to pay. In the
presence of Tyagi, the goon began to beat his father black and blue for
refusing to pay him. An enraged Tyagi, then aged only eighteen, picked up
a metal ruler—used to measure cloth—and hit the goon on his head,
splitting his skull into two. The goon collapsed and died on the spot.
Fearing arrest, Tyagi ran away from home. He had little money or personal
belongings. He wandered from one place to another, spending nights at
relatives’ homes, but soon realized no one was going to give him shelter on
a long-term basis. It was at this stage that he ran into a few local criminals
and began to work with them, soon realizing he had a flair for crime. He
saw a bright future for himself in the underworld.
A friend he ran into during this period had just been released from
Ambala Central Jail. The friend told Tyagi that a certain jail employee had
been particularly nasty to him and had abused him sexually. Tyagi was
enraged and decided to teach the jailor a lesson. He killed the jailor with his
bare hands as the man was leaving the prison complex one evening after
completing his shift.
Tyagi’s criminal friends had begun to spread word of his derring-do in
the nether world of crime. His next assignment came from the rival of a
sugar mill owner, again in Ambala. The rival wanted the mill owner to be
eliminated and was prepared to pay Rs 3 lakh for the job. Tyagi did not bat
an eyelid and killed the mill owner with a borrowed weapon. With the
money he received, he bought two Chinese-made pistols and thereafter
didn’t need to look elsewhere for weapons.
It wasn’t long before Tyagi decided to form his own gang. He didn’t trust
the sort of criminals he had met thus far. He began to motivate his first
cousins, some of whom were jobless and wished to make a career in crime.
At this time, he met one Harey Ram Sant, a dreaded criminal from
Gopalganj, Bihar, who had come to visit relatives in the Bulandshahr
district. Both Tyagi and Sant hit it off well and decided to work together.
But destiny had willed otherwise, at least in the short term.
The Uttar Pradesh Police caught up with Tyagi in 1995. He was arrested
and sent to Roorkee Jail. Desperate, he sent word to Sant to help him
escape. Towards the end of 1997, with Sant’s help, Tyagi fled from police
custody while he was being escorted back to Muzaffarnagar Jail from the
Roorkee court. He ran straight to Gopalganj where he met Sant, who
welcomed him into his gang with open arms. Upon realizing Tyagi was
meant for bigger things in the world of crime, Sant introduced him to one
Mukul Rai, a local gangster with political links. Rai in turn took Tyagi to
Suraj Bhan, a notorious criminal-turned-politician of Bihar. Bhan, then an
MLA, sheltered him in Mokama at his own residence. Tyagi was given a 9
mm pistol and trained in the handling of an AK-47 along with other
automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Thereafter, he committed over two
dozen murders as a hired assassin of Bhan and any businessmen willing to
pay him to settle scores with their rivals. One of these murders was the
sensational elimination of Tun Tun Singh, an extortionist businessman
based in Motihari, Bihar.
Soon, Bhan realized Tyagi was more than a handful, and in 1998, he
asked Mukul Rai to introduce Tyagi to an even bigger crime lord. He was
taken to Mohammad Shahabuddin. Tyagi was just the sort of gang member
MS was looking for—desperate, unscrupulous and daring. Tyagi committed
several sensational crimes at MS’s behest, including the infamous adhivakta
(advocate) murder case of 2000 in which Tyagi killed Raghubir Sharan, an
advocate and a witness in a case against MS’s aide Manoj Kumar aka
Pappu. He did not hesitate to kill Sharan’s wife and their ten-year-old son,
who were witnesses to Sharan’s cold-blooded murder. Some months later,
on 15 January 2001, Tyagi went on to commit the Roshera ‘narsanhar’
(massacre) in which seven people were killed and nineteen seriously
injured, although the target was only one person, namely, Murari, a smalltime
criminal who had the gumption to elope with the sister of one of
Tyagi’s gang members.
Tyagi’s march in the criminal world continued relentlessly with umpteen
bank robberies, kidnappings for ransom, hired killings and so on. He would
kill for money with no remorse, spreading a reign of terror in north Bihar.
*
Having agreed to carry out the kill for the ISI, MS dispatched Tyagi to
Delhi with the promise that weapons would be delivered to him there once
his team and he were ready for the hit. Tyagi arrived in Delhi and put
together a small team of local goons without any criminal records. The
Delhi Police had no clue about their criminal propensities. Tyagi, along
with his rookie gang members, carried out a recce of the journalists’
residences and their office. Tyagi was in regular touch with his ISI handlers,
who were based in Kathmandu. Fortunately, a telephone call that he made
to a number in Nepal in connection with this conspiracy was intercepted by
one of the central intelligence agencies of the Government of India. The
intercept was shared with the Special Cell of Delhi Police, which promptly
began to monitor all numbers that were being called from the Nepal number
and those calling it.
*
It was early May 2001. I was posted as a joint director in the Economic
Offences Wing of the CBI, having already completed nearly eight years of
my deputation in the organization. I had maintained close links with my
parent force—the Delhi Police—particularly with its counterterrorism wing,
the Special Cell. My team in the CBI and officers from the cell had carried
out several successful operations jointly. Consequently, in true esprit de
corps, we freely shared details of our work with one another and sought
mutual help as and when necessary. I was thus privy to the developments in
the operation to save the Tehelka duo and arrest their assassins before they
struck.
The cell was racing against time and two precious lives were at stake, as
was the fate of the NDA government. Our hopes for a breakthrough were
pinned solely on the chatter on nearly twenty mobiles we were secretly
listening in to. But all we heard were conversations in chaste Haryanvi
about property deals, plans to grab land on the outskirts of Delhi,
unauthorized constructions and so on. It was clear they were toughs who
were in the business of grabbing land, forcible evictions, etc. The waiting
game was nerve-racking. The high-stakes operation was making no
progress and waiting any longer for something to give made no sense.
Meanwhile, the dilemma before us was whether or not to caution the
Tehelka honchos. If we informed them, it was unlikely they would keep the
news to themselves. With little trust in the Delhi Police, they would run to
the high and mighty in the Central government to provide them with special
security. Also, they would go to town with the information about the
impending threat to their lives, which would certainly make sensational
headlines. Therefore, without taking the journalists into confidence, we
quietly cast a protective ring around them, lest the assassins strike.
As waiting any longer was foolhardy, it was decided to round up all those
who were under surveillance. The fact that the initial information had come
from a central intelligence agency made expediency that much more
imperative. But one premature move, one slip-up and the game could be
over. Picking the goons up in ones and twos could have resulted in the rest
escaping and jeopardizing our operation to nip the conspiracy in the bud.
We wanted to lay our hands, in one clean swoop, on as many of them as
possible, and sooner rather than later.
Finally, we heard in one of the intercepts that most of the goons were to
meet near Bhalswa dairy in north-west Delhi. A trap was laid and we lay in
wait.
On 5 May 2001 a Tata Safari with licence plate number DL 8CF 5xx5
was spotted near the rendezvous point off the Delhi–Karnal highway. Six
goons, later identified as Anil Kumar Shehrawat, Raj Kumar, Rakesh,
Dinesh Kumar, Omvir and Bhupender Tyagi aka Modi were nabbed from
the vehicle. An AK-47 rifle with two magazines and 200 rounds of
ammunition, one pistol with two magazines and fifty rounds of ammunition
and fake Indian currency worth Rs 25,000 were recovered. Most
importantly, layout plans of the residences of Tejpal and Bahal and their
office at D1 Swami Nagar in Delhi were also found. The following day, one
more AK-47 rifle with two magazines, 100 rounds of ammunition and one
pistol with ammunition were recovered from the house of Anil Kumar
Sehrawat.
With the arrest of Tyagi, whose curriculum vitae in the criminal world
has been discussed earlier, and his five associates, the attempted
assassination of Tejpal and Bahal was foiled. A case of criminal conspiracy
to commit murder was registered at the police station in Lodhi Colony
against the arrested accused and MS, who was absconding.
*
It was somewhere around this time that I went to my hometown Patna to
visit my parents. When returning to Delhi, I was sitting in the lounge at
Patna airport, waiting for my flight. As I sat browsing through newspapers,
I heard a commotion and looked around. Lo and behold, I saw MS walking
into the lounge nonchalantly. An aide, who was carrying his briefcase,
accompanied him. A member of the airline staff was escorting the two and
told them he would come to inform them once boarding commenced. They
slumped into a sofa, relaxed and comfortable.
I had recognized MS instantly as he had walked in. His unmistakable tall
frame, neatly trimmed moustache and piercing gaze were enough for me to
identify him. But since this was the first time I was seeing him in the flesh,
I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was indeed him. Here I was, face-toface
with one of the most dreaded criminals of the time, wanted in several
cases, one of which I was intimately privy to. I had to do something fairly
quickly as within minutes both he and I would be flying off, not necessarily
to the same destination. I was fidgety and restless while he was carefree and
unconcerned. He was obviously not aware that a CBI officer had spotted
him. Not that it would have mattered. After all, he was an MP and someone
police officers usually kept away from. I stepped outside the lounge to
speak to Neelu Babu, a Special Branch officer of the Bihar Police deployed
at the airport, who had come to see me off.
‘Who is the man who just walked into the lounge?’ I enquired.
‘Sir, he is the same person you think he is,’ replied Neelu.
By now I could feel the adrenaline rush. The only other flight taking off
at that time had been announced and passengers had begun boarding. MS
and his crony were still sitting coolly in the lounge. That meant he was on
the same flight as I was and we were both Delhi-bound.
I asked Neelu if I could use a phone with STD facility. He quickly took
me to a booth nearby, installed in an open cabin without any privacy. But I
had to alert my counterparts in the Delhi Police Special Cell who were
investigating the case MS was wanted in. I called up Rajbir Singh, an ACP
in the Special Cell, and informed him that I was taking the Indian Airlines
flight to Delhi that day and that he should meet me at the Delhi airport with
a small police team. I didn’t wish to take MS’s name within hearing
distance of anyone lest the word leak out. My message to Rajbir was cryptic
but clear enough for him to come prepared for some action.
Meanwhile, the flight had been announced, and I proceeded towards
security check. MS stayed put, as the airline staffer had not yet turned up to
escort him. Fortunately for me, my seat, 7C, was an aisle seat in the first
row of economy class. I could easily see what was going on in business
class. Sure enough, I saw MS board the aircraft and take seat 1F in the first
row of the executive class, while his associate walked into economy and
moved towards the rear rows. I could easily see MS from my seat. By now
my excitement knew no bounds. A wanted criminal was travelling in the
same flight as I was.
Once the aircraft door closed, the airhostess welcomed the passengers
aboard the flight going to Delhi via Ranchi. Via Ranchi? Oh my god! That
threw cold water on my excitement. I had alerted the Special Cell to be
ready for an operation, but what if our quarry disembarked at Ranchi? All
through the barely half-hour flight to Ranchi I had ants in my pants,
wondering what would happen at Ranchi. Would MS get off or would he
continue on to Delhi? The suspense was killing me. What was required of
me if he was indeed Delhi-bound? I had to try hard not to give away my
anxiety and restlessness to the passengers seated close to me.
Soon the aircraft landed at Ranchi and my fears were put to rest. Neither
MS nor his crony disembarked. Once the Ranchi-bound passengers had
alighted, I walked towards the rear of the aircraft and saw MS’s aide seated
in 27E. I decided it was now necessary to inform the Special Cell that it was
MS who was travelling with me and was seated in 1F while his associate
was in 27E.
I told the airhostess who I was and that I needed to alight and make an
urgent official call. She informed me that Delhi-bound passengers were not
permitted to disembark. I then told her I needed to see the captain and gave
her my CBI visiting card. Within a minute she was back to inform me that
the captain wanted to see me in the cockpit immediately.
I told the captain that I had an urgent message to convey to my fellow
officers in Delhi and I needed to make a call immediately. Both the captain
and I carried mobile phones but mobile telephony had not yet come to
Ranchi. He permitted me to disembark and assured me that the flight would
wait for me. I quickly got off the aircraft and ran to the terminal building.
To my surprise, there was not a soul to be seen there. Ours was the last
flight to leave Ranchi, and once the last passengers had left the terminal to
board the flight to Delhi, all ground staff deployed at the airport had left.
I ran around the terminal building like a mad man. Thankfully, I noticed a
man in uniform with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF; the Central
Industrial Security Force [CISF] had not taken over airport security at
Ranchi yet) shoulder tabs. I rushed up to him, introduced myself and said
that I needed to make an urgent call. He took me to the CRPF office, which
was located within the terminal building. I rang up Rajbir Singh and
excitedly informed him that it was MS and an associate of his who were
travelling on my flight. I also shared with him their seat numbers.
The standard operating procedure followed by law enforcement agencies
when they have to pick up somebody from an aircraft is that the captain is
informed beforehand through air traffic control not to commence
disembarkation until the agency officers enter the aircraft, locate the person
to be picked up and leave with their quarry. I felt satisfied that I had
conveyed all the necessary information to the concerned officers. I could
now return to the aircraft in peace for the onward journey to Delhi. The
stage was set for the smooth apprehension of one of the most dreaded
criminals of our time. Or so I thought.
As I emerged from the Ranchi airport terminal building after making the
call, I saw the aircraft waiting for me with the boarding stairs still in place.
Boarding had been completed and there was not a soul around. An eerie
silence prevailed as I ran up the steps and entered the aircraft, panting. I
could feel the glares of the passengers already seated whose flight had been
delayed because of me. The airhostess, however, greeted me with a smile
and whispered to me to proceed to the cockpit.
The captain welcomed me back, saying, ‘Sir, you look very anxious.
Why don’t you calm down and sit with us in the cockpit?’
No better offer could have come to me at that point. My frayed nerves
relaxed as I sat on the seat right behind the captain. The airhostess served
me a glass of juice. I noticed that the co-pilot was a lady.
The aircraft soon took off and was on its way to Delhi. After the seat belt
sign was turned off, the pilots got chatting with me.
The captain asked, ‘Sir, can you tell me why you are so exercised?’
There was no reason for me to be secretive after what the captain had
done for me. ‘Captain, there is a wanted criminal on board.’
‘Is he the gentleman sitting in 1F?’
My reply was in the affirmative, but I inquired how he knew.
‘I fly this circuit often and know the frequent fliers, particularly the
VIPs,’ he said with a smile.
The irony of a wanted criminal being a VIP frequent flier was not lost on
me.
There was silence for a while.
The co-pilot then said, ‘Sir, I had heard so much about CBI officers
chasing criminals but for the first time I am seeing it happen right in front
of my eyes.’ She looked at me in awe.
The flying time between Ranchi and Delhi passed quickly, thanks to the
hospitality of the pilots and the cabin staff. Soon the aircraft was
approaching Delhi. The captain offered to convey any message that I
wanted through air traffic control, once the plane had landed. Alternatively,
I could switch on my mobile phone as soon as the aircraft had touched the
tarmac. I thanked him for the offer and informed him that all necessary
information had already been conveyed.
The aircraft landed smoothly at Delhi and began to taxi to its designated
spot. I called up Rajbir, but uncharacteristically, there was no response even
as his mobile and landline phones rang incessantly. I then called up his
deputy, Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, but even he didn’t respond. This
was a strange and unacceptable turn of events.
Meanwhile, the aircraft had finished taxiing and had come to a stop. I
waited anxiously for the Special Cell boys to rush in and nab MS and his
aide. But there was no one in sight. Both the captain and co-pilot looked at
me quizzically and asked my permission to let the passengers disembark. I
must have looked like a fool after the larger-than-life picture I had painted
of a CBI sleuth in action through the flight. Embarrassed, I called Rajbir
one last time from my mobile, but there was again no response. I then
called Mohan Sharma. But there was no response from him either. Never
before had Rajbir or his deputy not answered a call from me or not called
me back immediately.
I knew something was amiss but could not figure out what. I had no
option but to tell the captain to allow the passengers to disembark. I was
permitted to leave with the business class passengers in the first bus. There,
standing almost next to me, was MS. He obviously did not know of me or
recognize me. On reaching the terminal building, he calmly left, right in
front of my eyes. My last hope of the Special Cell picking him up from the
arrival area had vanished into thin air.
*
After collecting my check-in baggage I exited the terminal and drove
straight to the Special Cell office. I was furious at being let down, and that
too with such brazenness. I stormed into Rajbir’s office and saw him sitting
with Mohan Sharma. I shouted at them for their strange behaviour and
demanded an explanation. They were not my subordinates as I was in the
CBI and they in the Delhi Police. But, we had worked together as a team on
several occasions and I felt I had the moral right to question them. In any
case, I was their senior in police hierarchy by many ranks. Rajbir calmed
me down after I had given full vent to my fury. He then gave me his side of
the story.
On receiving the information about MS from me, Rajbir had shared it
with his immediate superiors who had thought it prudent to get the approval
of their political bosses, particularly because MS was an MP. The
permission to apprehend him had been denied. The two officers were also
under instructions from their immediate superiors to distance themselves
from me for a while. No wonder they hadn’t answered any of my calls.
I was later to learn that some kind of political initiative was afoot to forge
an alliance between MS and other politicians in Bihar to derail the ruling
party there. It did not matter that MS was wanted in a serious case of
conspiracy to derail the very same government that was denying permission
for his arrest. It also did not matter that MS was regularly in touch with the
ISI and Kashmiri militants.
Thus came to a rather farcical end my effort to get one of the most
dreaded criminals in India arrested after a chance encounter with him at an
airport lounge. Even subsequently, he was not arrested by the Delhi Police
as a co-conspirator in the case of the attempted assassination of Tejpal and
Bahal. His name was, however, mentioned in the charge sheet of the case in
‘khana (column) number 2’ as an accused against whom sufficient evidence
had not come on record.
*
Tyagi, in the interim, was under trial with his associates in the Tarun
Tejpal–Aniruddha Bahal assassination attempt case in the Tees Hazari
court. He was often taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police to the Roorkee,
Bulandshahr and Haridwar courts for cases that were pending trial there. As
the days went by the limelight on Tyagi faded. He was lodged in Tihar Jail
and occasionally taken to courts in and outside Delhi, escorted by a police
guard whose strength kept declining progressively. Tyagi knew it was time
for him to flee.
Those who have driven on highways in India are familiar with built-up
areas coming up ever so frequently, creeping up to the road within sniffing
distance of the busy traffic. Wayside dhabas—eateries popular for their
fresh food served steaming hot—petrol stations, motor workshops and
grocery stores dot either side of the road in a haphazard and chaotic manner.
Pedestrians hop across the road as if they are on a suicide mission. Often, in
larger townships, a bus station, with countless passengers carrying all
manner of luggage, adds to the cosmic chaos that is India. Decrepit and
ramshackle buses, overloaded with passengers, zoom in and out of the
terminals, leaving a trail of dust behind them. Small puddles of putrid water
dot the landscape like festering wounds. Yet, bus and railway stations in
India, with their hustle and bustle, are living testimonies of the energy and
drive of the country.
On 13 September 2003, Head Constable Baburam, Constable
Ramchander and Constable Neeraj Kumar of the armed police of Uttar
Pradesh stood at one such bus stand in Roorkee, a city in the Haridwar
district of Uttarakhand in north India. They had in their custody none other
than Tyagi. It had been over two years since he had been arrested by the
Special Cell of Delhi Police. He had been moved from Tihar Jail to the
Muzaffarnagar district jail in Uttar Pradesh, as he was required to appear
before courts in that jurisdiction. He was being taken to the Roshnabad
district jail of Haridwar from where he had to be produced before the
Roshnabad court the following day.
It was an unusually hot and humid post-monsoon afternoon, typical of
the plains of north India. The policemen, lugging their .303 rifles, were
perspiring in the oppressive heat, their uniforms drenched with sweat and
their alertness dipping by the minute. Their detenue Bhupinder Tyagi was
equally agitated and fidgety, but not because of the muggy air. He was
waiting, rather impatiently, for his freedom.
At about 4 p.m., a red motorcycle with registration number UP 07C 78X1
drove slowly by the group and stopped a couple of yards away. The two
riders got off, approached the policemen and began abusing them. Before
the cops could react they were pushed to the ground. Tyagi broke free and
ran to the bike as did his rescuers. They hopped on to the motorcycle with
Tyagi in the middle and began riding away. One of them saw Constable
Neeraj Kumar run after them and opened fire at the policeman. Kumar was
hit in the chest and fell down. However, almost as a reflex action, from his
prone position Kumar aimed his .303 rifle at them and pulled the trigger.
The first and only shot fired by him got the hoodlum sitting at the rear end
of the bike. Not surprisingly—given its muzzle velocity and the short range
—the bullet went through his body, then Tyagi’s and finally pierced through
the third gangster who was driving the bike. The motorcycle crashed to the
ground with its three riders thrown off in a heap. Constable Neeraj Kumar,
injured grievously, lay at a distance writhing in pain. He was rushed to the
hospital and fortunately survived. The three gangsters, however, were
declared dead on arrival at the hospital.
Thus Tyagi’s life came to a bloody end, perhaps a fitting culmination to
the trail of terror and killings he had unleashed in the plains of north India.
The law finally caught up with MS in September 2016 when he was
arrested on the orders of the Patna High Court. Since the prisons in Bihar
had earlier failed to keep MS in custody as he had compromised the jail
staff, either through intimidation or by lucre, the Supreme Court, in
February 2017, on a request made by the Government of Bihar, ordered that
he be transferred to Tihar Jail in Delhi.
MS, reportedly a much mellower person now, is cooling his heels in an
isolation ward of Tihar. Quite recently, he petitioned the Supreme Court to
be moved to the general ward from his solitary confinement. The court
dismissed his petition, asking him to submit his request to the director
general of Tihar Prisons. Nothing more has been heard since.
With the sahib (lord) behind bars, in a prison located several hundred
kilometres away from his fiefdom and where his writ doesn’t run, Siwan
sleeps better. Kidnappings, dacoities and murders are on the decline and the
law and order situation is much better. But given the vicissitudes of politics
and our criminal justice system, only time will tell how long the sahib and
his riyasat (state) are kept away from each other.
Janata Party (BJP), became the tenth prime minister of India in 1996.
However, his first term was destined to last a mere thirteen days.
Subsequently, in May 1998, he was instrumental in forming a National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) by bringing together several regional parties
that supported the BJP from outside. The NDA fought the general elections
the same year and Vajpayee returned as prime minister. But, yet again,
within a year, the government collapsed when an ally based in Tamil Nadu
withdrew its support. Nonetheless, with the support of a few more regional
parties, the NDA proceeded to win the 1999 elections with a comfortable
majority and finally completed its term, which ended in 2004. Vajpayee
thus became the first prime minister from outside the Indian National
Congress to serve a full five-year term.
The NDA government under Vajpayee witnessed many crises after it
came to power on 13 October 1999. Within a little over two months, on 24
December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to New
Delhi was hijacked by five Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and flown to
Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The hijackers demanded the release
of dangerous terrorists as ransom. Terror masterminds such as Maulana
Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, all held in
Indian prisons, were named. The week-long stand-off between the hijackers
and the Government of India concluded on the last day of the millennium
when the government wilted under media and public pressure and
acquiesced to the hijackers’ demands. The then external affairs minister,
Jaswant Singh, rather shamefacedly, flew to Kandahar with the three
terrorists and handed them over to the hijackers. The IC 814 passengers
were released and were flown home on 31 December 1999. In this terror
episode there was one tragic fatality. Rupin Katyal, a twenty-five-year-old
honeymooner, succumbed to injuries inflicted on him by the hijackers at the
Amritsar airport, where the plane had stopped for refuelling.
A year later, on 22 December 2000, the Red Fort in Delhi, a symbol of
India’s pluralism and unity, was attacked by the terror group LeT, leaving
three soldiers and a civilian dead. More than a terror attack on an iconic
monument, it was a serious portent of bigger things to come, including the
attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, which brought India
and Pakistan to the brink of war.
But seven months before the attack on the Parliament, in March 2001, a
crisis hit the Vajpayee government that severely embarrassed it. Tehelka
(which means ‘sensation’ in Hindi) was a website started by two intrepid
journalists, namely, Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal, in 2000. On 14
March 2001, videos of its first major sting investigation, called ‘Operation
West End’, were broadcast on prime-time television, showing the then BJP
president, senior army officers and NDA members accepting bribes from
journalists posing as agents and businessmen. The president of the BJP had
to resign and subsequently, so did the then defence minister. These events
left the BJP red-faced and its alliance on the brink of implosion.
Furthermore, Operation West End and its aftermath prompted Pakistan’s
spy agency, the ISI, to contrive a diabolical plan to destabilize India. The
ISI was closely monitoring the situation in India and reasoned that if Tejpal
and Bahal, the co-authors of Operation West End, were to be assassinated,
the blame would fall on the ruling party. Every finger would point to the
BJP for the murder of the two journalists who had exposed their party
president. In the wake of the raging controversy that would follow,
alongside negative public opinion, the tenuous majority that the NDA had
in the Parliament would be breached and the NDA government would once
again fall. India would be plunged into political instability.
Characteristically, only the ISI could have hatched such an insidious
conspiracy against India.
But, who would carry out the job for the ISI? Who would pull the trigger
on Tejpal and Bahal? ISI’s experience had taught it that using local criminal
dons equipped with trained manpower, local knowledge, weaponry and so
on was the best bet. For instance, the ISI had put the leading lights of the
Mumbai and Gujarat underworlds to good use to carry out serial blasts in
Mumbai in 1993. The terror attack had taken nearly three hundred lives and
damaged properties worth millions. However, leading mafia dons, namely,
Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Mohammad Dossa, Abu Salem and Abdul
Lateef—the main architects of the serial blasts—were either in hiding in
Pakistan or behind bars. The ISI therefore had to look for someone else,
someone equally resourceful and capable, but not yet on the radar of the
Indian authorities.
The ISI’s ‘talent scouts’ looked eastwards in India and zeroed in on a
crime supremo—a monster par excellence—from Bihar who was capable,
still at large and fairly active. Not only that, he was a serving member of
Parliament (MP). His name: Mohammad Shahabuddin (MS).
MS is a criminal-turned-politician whose equal would be difficult to find
in the annals of crime. Yes, you may find offenders with darker criminal
involvements, criminals who are far more cruel and devious; but, in my
nearly four-decade-long police career, I haven’t heard of anyone who
alongside his career in crime has been as successful in politics as MS. He
had served as a member of Bihar’s legislative assembly for two terms in the
1990s and as an MP for four consecutive terms. His political career thrived
until the long arm of the law finally caught up with him.
Born on 10 May 1967 in Partapur village in the Siwan district of Bihar,
MS entered the world of crime in 1986 at the age of nineteen. Thereafter, he
was involved in several cases of murder, attempts to murder and other grave
crimes. An example of one such gruesome crime is the case in which he
was accused of killing three brothers by giving them an acid bath. The
police declared him a habitual offender and opened his history sheet.
Notwithstanding his criminal record, he entered politics and contested the
Bihar assembly elections in 1990 and won. He was elected again as a
member of the legislative assembly (MLA) in 1995. His political stature
grew when he was given a ticket by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president,
Lalu Prasad Yadav, in the parliamentary elections of 1996. Given his reign
of terror in Siwan—his home constituency—he won the elections
comfortably and became an MP. Riding the wave of his political success, he
became a law unto himself in Siwan and often came into confrontation with
the local police and government officials. He assaulted policemen with
impunity and is known to have fired at them on several occasions.
In March 2001, Sanjiv Kumar, a police officer who had gone to serve a
warrant of arrest to MS’s party worker, Manoj Kumar Pappu, was slapped
by the don. MS’s men brutally beat up several policemen accompanying
Sanjiv Kumar. The cops had to beat a hasty retreat but soon regrouped.
Reinforcements were called, some even from the neighbouring state of
Uttar Pradesh. The Siwan police, with an adequate force at their command,
raided MS’s fortress-like house. In the extensive armed exchange that
followed, two policemen and eight of MS’s men were killed. Three AK-47s
and other automatic weapons were found near the dead bodies of MS’s
men. MS, along with those of his men still alive, escaped, setting fire to
three police jeeps and firing continuously to cover their movement. Neither
MS nor Manoj Kumar could be arrested. After this episode, several more
cases were filed against MS, but he always absconded.
It was precisely at this time, when MS was on the run, that the ISI
decided to contact him and task him with the killing of the Tehelka duo. MS
had been in touch with Kashmiri separatists and ISI agents for some time,
as was publicly disclosed in a press conference by the then director general
of police (DGP), Bihar. Soon after the DGP made this announcement, he
was posted to an innocuous assignment; such was MS’s political clout.
An ISI agent based in Bangladesh, code-named Jain Saheb, was in touch
with a stooge in Nepal: Salim Mian Ansari. Ansari was a prominent mafia
leader and a former minister of Nepal. He belonged to the Communist Party
of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist). Two conspiratorial meetings were
held at Salim Mian’s Nepal residence sometime around January–February
2001. MS and Jain Saheb were invited. MS, aware of what the meeting was
about, had taken a sharpshooter, Bhupender Tyagi, with him. Tyagi hailed
from Uttar Pradesh. MS thought he would be an ideal handyman to
accompany him.
Before proceeding with the story, it would be pertinent to give a brief
background on Tyagi. He was a native of Kisola village in the Bulandshahr
district of Uttar Pradesh. His father was a cloth merchant and ran a
reasonably successful business. A local goon wanted to extort ‘rangdari tax’
(protection money) from the cloth merchant, which he refused to pay. In the
presence of Tyagi, the goon began to beat his father black and blue for
refusing to pay him. An enraged Tyagi, then aged only eighteen, picked up
a metal ruler—used to measure cloth—and hit the goon on his head,
splitting his skull into two. The goon collapsed and died on the spot.
Fearing arrest, Tyagi ran away from home. He had little money or personal
belongings. He wandered from one place to another, spending nights at
relatives’ homes, but soon realized no one was going to give him shelter on
a long-term basis. It was at this stage that he ran into a few local criminals
and began to work with them, soon realizing he had a flair for crime. He
saw a bright future for himself in the underworld.
A friend he ran into during this period had just been released from
Ambala Central Jail. The friend told Tyagi that a certain jail employee had
been particularly nasty to him and had abused him sexually. Tyagi was
enraged and decided to teach the jailor a lesson. He killed the jailor with his
bare hands as the man was leaving the prison complex one evening after
completing his shift.
Tyagi’s criminal friends had begun to spread word of his derring-do in
the nether world of crime. His next assignment came from the rival of a
sugar mill owner, again in Ambala. The rival wanted the mill owner to be
eliminated and was prepared to pay Rs 3 lakh for the job. Tyagi did not bat
an eyelid and killed the mill owner with a borrowed weapon. With the
money he received, he bought two Chinese-made pistols and thereafter
didn’t need to look elsewhere for weapons.
It wasn’t long before Tyagi decided to form his own gang. He didn’t trust
the sort of criminals he had met thus far. He began to motivate his first
cousins, some of whom were jobless and wished to make a career in crime.
At this time, he met one Harey Ram Sant, a dreaded criminal from
Gopalganj, Bihar, who had come to visit relatives in the Bulandshahr
district. Both Tyagi and Sant hit it off well and decided to work together.
But destiny had willed otherwise, at least in the short term.
The Uttar Pradesh Police caught up with Tyagi in 1995. He was arrested
and sent to Roorkee Jail. Desperate, he sent word to Sant to help him
escape. Towards the end of 1997, with Sant’s help, Tyagi fled from police
custody while he was being escorted back to Muzaffarnagar Jail from the
Roorkee court. He ran straight to Gopalganj where he met Sant, who
welcomed him into his gang with open arms. Upon realizing Tyagi was
meant for bigger things in the world of crime, Sant introduced him to one
Mukul Rai, a local gangster with political links. Rai in turn took Tyagi to
Suraj Bhan, a notorious criminal-turned-politician of Bihar. Bhan, then an
MLA, sheltered him in Mokama at his own residence. Tyagi was given a 9
mm pistol and trained in the handling of an AK-47 along with other
automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Thereafter, he committed over two
dozen murders as a hired assassin of Bhan and any businessmen willing to
pay him to settle scores with their rivals. One of these murders was the
sensational elimination of Tun Tun Singh, an extortionist businessman
based in Motihari, Bihar.
Soon, Bhan realized Tyagi was more than a handful, and in 1998, he
asked Mukul Rai to introduce Tyagi to an even bigger crime lord. He was
taken to Mohammad Shahabuddin. Tyagi was just the sort of gang member
MS was looking for—desperate, unscrupulous and daring. Tyagi committed
several sensational crimes at MS’s behest, including the infamous adhivakta
(advocate) murder case of 2000 in which Tyagi killed Raghubir Sharan, an
advocate and a witness in a case against MS’s aide Manoj Kumar aka
Pappu. He did not hesitate to kill Sharan’s wife and their ten-year-old son,
who were witnesses to Sharan’s cold-blooded murder. Some months later,
on 15 January 2001, Tyagi went on to commit the Roshera ‘narsanhar’
(massacre) in which seven people were killed and nineteen seriously
injured, although the target was only one person, namely, Murari, a smalltime
criminal who had the gumption to elope with the sister of one of
Tyagi’s gang members.
Tyagi’s march in the criminal world continued relentlessly with umpteen
bank robberies, kidnappings for ransom, hired killings and so on. He would
kill for money with no remorse, spreading a reign of terror in north Bihar.
*
Having agreed to carry out the kill for the ISI, MS dispatched Tyagi to
Delhi with the promise that weapons would be delivered to him there once
his team and he were ready for the hit. Tyagi arrived in Delhi and put
together a small team of local goons without any criminal records. The
Delhi Police had no clue about their criminal propensities. Tyagi, along
with his rookie gang members, carried out a recce of the journalists’
residences and their office. Tyagi was in regular touch with his ISI handlers,
who were based in Kathmandu. Fortunately, a telephone call that he made
to a number in Nepal in connection with this conspiracy was intercepted by
one of the central intelligence agencies of the Government of India. The
intercept was shared with the Special Cell of Delhi Police, which promptly
began to monitor all numbers that were being called from the Nepal number
and those calling it.
*
It was early May 2001. I was posted as a joint director in the Economic
Offences Wing of the CBI, having already completed nearly eight years of
my deputation in the organization. I had maintained close links with my
parent force—the Delhi Police—particularly with its counterterrorism wing,
the Special Cell. My team in the CBI and officers from the cell had carried
out several successful operations jointly. Consequently, in true esprit de
corps, we freely shared details of our work with one another and sought
mutual help as and when necessary. I was thus privy to the developments in
the operation to save the Tehelka duo and arrest their assassins before they
struck.
The cell was racing against time and two precious lives were at stake, as
was the fate of the NDA government. Our hopes for a breakthrough were
pinned solely on the chatter on nearly twenty mobiles we were secretly
listening in to. But all we heard were conversations in chaste Haryanvi
about property deals, plans to grab land on the outskirts of Delhi,
unauthorized constructions and so on. It was clear they were toughs who
were in the business of grabbing land, forcible evictions, etc. The waiting
game was nerve-racking. The high-stakes operation was making no
progress and waiting any longer for something to give made no sense.
Meanwhile, the dilemma before us was whether or not to caution the
Tehelka honchos. If we informed them, it was unlikely they would keep the
news to themselves. With little trust in the Delhi Police, they would run to
the high and mighty in the Central government to provide them with special
security. Also, they would go to town with the information about the
impending threat to their lives, which would certainly make sensational
headlines. Therefore, without taking the journalists into confidence, we
quietly cast a protective ring around them, lest the assassins strike.
As waiting any longer was foolhardy, it was decided to round up all those
who were under surveillance. The fact that the initial information had come
from a central intelligence agency made expediency that much more
imperative. But one premature move, one slip-up and the game could be
over. Picking the goons up in ones and twos could have resulted in the rest
escaping and jeopardizing our operation to nip the conspiracy in the bud.
We wanted to lay our hands, in one clean swoop, on as many of them as
possible, and sooner rather than later.
Finally, we heard in one of the intercepts that most of the goons were to
meet near Bhalswa dairy in north-west Delhi. A trap was laid and we lay in
wait.
On 5 May 2001 a Tata Safari with licence plate number DL 8CF 5xx5
was spotted near the rendezvous point off the Delhi–Karnal highway. Six
goons, later identified as Anil Kumar Shehrawat, Raj Kumar, Rakesh,
Dinesh Kumar, Omvir and Bhupender Tyagi aka Modi were nabbed from
the vehicle. An AK-47 rifle with two magazines and 200 rounds of
ammunition, one pistol with two magazines and fifty rounds of ammunition
and fake Indian currency worth Rs 25,000 were recovered. Most
importantly, layout plans of the residences of Tejpal and Bahal and their
office at D1 Swami Nagar in Delhi were also found. The following day, one
more AK-47 rifle with two magazines, 100 rounds of ammunition and one
pistol with ammunition were recovered from the house of Anil Kumar
Sehrawat.
With the arrest of Tyagi, whose curriculum vitae in the criminal world
has been discussed earlier, and his five associates, the attempted
assassination of Tejpal and Bahal was foiled. A case of criminal conspiracy
to commit murder was registered at the police station in Lodhi Colony
against the arrested accused and MS, who was absconding.
*
It was somewhere around this time that I went to my hometown Patna to
visit my parents. When returning to Delhi, I was sitting in the lounge at
Patna airport, waiting for my flight. As I sat browsing through newspapers,
I heard a commotion and looked around. Lo and behold, I saw MS walking
into the lounge nonchalantly. An aide, who was carrying his briefcase,
accompanied him. A member of the airline staff was escorting the two and
told them he would come to inform them once boarding commenced. They
slumped into a sofa, relaxed and comfortable.
I had recognized MS instantly as he had walked in. His unmistakable tall
frame, neatly trimmed moustache and piercing gaze were enough for me to
identify him. But since this was the first time I was seeing him in the flesh,
I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was indeed him. Here I was, face-toface
with one of the most dreaded criminals of the time, wanted in several
cases, one of which I was intimately privy to. I had to do something fairly
quickly as within minutes both he and I would be flying off, not necessarily
to the same destination. I was fidgety and restless while he was carefree and
unconcerned. He was obviously not aware that a CBI officer had spotted
him. Not that it would have mattered. After all, he was an MP and someone
police officers usually kept away from. I stepped outside the lounge to
speak to Neelu Babu, a Special Branch officer of the Bihar Police deployed
at the airport, who had come to see me off.
‘Who is the man who just walked into the lounge?’ I enquired.
‘Sir, he is the same person you think he is,’ replied Neelu.
By now I could feel the adrenaline rush. The only other flight taking off
at that time had been announced and passengers had begun boarding. MS
and his crony were still sitting coolly in the lounge. That meant he was on
the same flight as I was and we were both Delhi-bound.
I asked Neelu if I could use a phone with STD facility. He quickly took
me to a booth nearby, installed in an open cabin without any privacy. But I
had to alert my counterparts in the Delhi Police Special Cell who were
investigating the case MS was wanted in. I called up Rajbir Singh, an ACP
in the Special Cell, and informed him that I was taking the Indian Airlines
flight to Delhi that day and that he should meet me at the Delhi airport with
a small police team. I didn’t wish to take MS’s name within hearing
distance of anyone lest the word leak out. My message to Rajbir was cryptic
but clear enough for him to come prepared for some action.
Meanwhile, the flight had been announced, and I proceeded towards
security check. MS stayed put, as the airline staffer had not yet turned up to
escort him. Fortunately for me, my seat, 7C, was an aisle seat in the first
row of economy class. I could easily see what was going on in business
class. Sure enough, I saw MS board the aircraft and take seat 1F in the first
row of the executive class, while his associate walked into economy and
moved towards the rear rows. I could easily see MS from my seat. By now
my excitement knew no bounds. A wanted criminal was travelling in the
same flight as I was.
Once the aircraft door closed, the airhostess welcomed the passengers
aboard the flight going to Delhi via Ranchi. Via Ranchi? Oh my god! That
threw cold water on my excitement. I had alerted the Special Cell to be
ready for an operation, but what if our quarry disembarked at Ranchi? All
through the barely half-hour flight to Ranchi I had ants in my pants,
wondering what would happen at Ranchi. Would MS get off or would he
continue on to Delhi? The suspense was killing me. What was required of
me if he was indeed Delhi-bound? I had to try hard not to give away my
anxiety and restlessness to the passengers seated close to me.
Soon the aircraft landed at Ranchi and my fears were put to rest. Neither
MS nor his crony disembarked. Once the Ranchi-bound passengers had
alighted, I walked towards the rear of the aircraft and saw MS’s aide seated
in 27E. I decided it was now necessary to inform the Special Cell that it was
MS who was travelling with me and was seated in 1F while his associate
was in 27E.
I told the airhostess who I was and that I needed to alight and make an
urgent official call. She informed me that Delhi-bound passengers were not
permitted to disembark. I then told her I needed to see the captain and gave
her my CBI visiting card. Within a minute she was back to inform me that
the captain wanted to see me in the cockpit immediately.
I told the captain that I had an urgent message to convey to my fellow
officers in Delhi and I needed to make a call immediately. Both the captain
and I carried mobile phones but mobile telephony had not yet come to
Ranchi. He permitted me to disembark and assured me that the flight would
wait for me. I quickly got off the aircraft and ran to the terminal building.
To my surprise, there was not a soul to be seen there. Ours was the last
flight to leave Ranchi, and once the last passengers had left the terminal to
board the flight to Delhi, all ground staff deployed at the airport had left.
I ran around the terminal building like a mad man. Thankfully, I noticed a
man in uniform with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF; the Central
Industrial Security Force [CISF] had not taken over airport security at
Ranchi yet) shoulder tabs. I rushed up to him, introduced myself and said
that I needed to make an urgent call. He took me to the CRPF office, which
was located within the terminal building. I rang up Rajbir Singh and
excitedly informed him that it was MS and an associate of his who were
travelling on my flight. I also shared with him their seat numbers.
The standard operating procedure followed by law enforcement agencies
when they have to pick up somebody from an aircraft is that the captain is
informed beforehand through air traffic control not to commence
disembarkation until the agency officers enter the aircraft, locate the person
to be picked up and leave with their quarry. I felt satisfied that I had
conveyed all the necessary information to the concerned officers. I could
now return to the aircraft in peace for the onward journey to Delhi. The
stage was set for the smooth apprehension of one of the most dreaded
criminals of our time. Or so I thought.
As I emerged from the Ranchi airport terminal building after making the
call, I saw the aircraft waiting for me with the boarding stairs still in place.
Boarding had been completed and there was not a soul around. An eerie
silence prevailed as I ran up the steps and entered the aircraft, panting. I
could feel the glares of the passengers already seated whose flight had been
delayed because of me. The airhostess, however, greeted me with a smile
and whispered to me to proceed to the cockpit.
The captain welcomed me back, saying, ‘Sir, you look very anxious.
Why don’t you calm down and sit with us in the cockpit?’
No better offer could have come to me at that point. My frayed nerves
relaxed as I sat on the seat right behind the captain. The airhostess served
me a glass of juice. I noticed that the co-pilot was a lady.
The aircraft soon took off and was on its way to Delhi. After the seat belt
sign was turned off, the pilots got chatting with me.
The captain asked, ‘Sir, can you tell me why you are so exercised?’
There was no reason for me to be secretive after what the captain had
done for me. ‘Captain, there is a wanted criminal on board.’
‘Is he the gentleman sitting in 1F?’
My reply was in the affirmative, but I inquired how he knew.
‘I fly this circuit often and know the frequent fliers, particularly the
VIPs,’ he said with a smile.
The irony of a wanted criminal being a VIP frequent flier was not lost on
me.
There was silence for a while.
The co-pilot then said, ‘Sir, I had heard so much about CBI officers
chasing criminals but for the first time I am seeing it happen right in front
of my eyes.’ She looked at me in awe.
The flying time between Ranchi and Delhi passed quickly, thanks to the
hospitality of the pilots and the cabin staff. Soon the aircraft was
approaching Delhi. The captain offered to convey any message that I
wanted through air traffic control, once the plane had landed. Alternatively,
I could switch on my mobile phone as soon as the aircraft had touched the
tarmac. I thanked him for the offer and informed him that all necessary
information had already been conveyed.
The aircraft landed smoothly at Delhi and began to taxi to its designated
spot. I called up Rajbir, but uncharacteristically, there was no response even
as his mobile and landline phones rang incessantly. I then called up his
deputy, Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, but even he didn’t respond. This
was a strange and unacceptable turn of events.
Meanwhile, the aircraft had finished taxiing and had come to a stop. I
waited anxiously for the Special Cell boys to rush in and nab MS and his
aide. But there was no one in sight. Both the captain and co-pilot looked at
me quizzically and asked my permission to let the passengers disembark. I
must have looked like a fool after the larger-than-life picture I had painted
of a CBI sleuth in action through the flight. Embarrassed, I called Rajbir
one last time from my mobile, but there was again no response. I then
called Mohan Sharma. But there was no response from him either. Never
before had Rajbir or his deputy not answered a call from me or not called
me back immediately.
I knew something was amiss but could not figure out what. I had no
option but to tell the captain to allow the passengers to disembark. I was
permitted to leave with the business class passengers in the first bus. There,
standing almost next to me, was MS. He obviously did not know of me or
recognize me. On reaching the terminal building, he calmly left, right in
front of my eyes. My last hope of the Special Cell picking him up from the
arrival area had vanished into thin air.
*
After collecting my check-in baggage I exited the terminal and drove
straight to the Special Cell office. I was furious at being let down, and that
too with such brazenness. I stormed into Rajbir’s office and saw him sitting
with Mohan Sharma. I shouted at them for their strange behaviour and
demanded an explanation. They were not my subordinates as I was in the
CBI and they in the Delhi Police. But, we had worked together as a team on
several occasions and I felt I had the moral right to question them. In any
case, I was their senior in police hierarchy by many ranks. Rajbir calmed
me down after I had given full vent to my fury. He then gave me his side of
the story.
On receiving the information about MS from me, Rajbir had shared it
with his immediate superiors who had thought it prudent to get the approval
of their political bosses, particularly because MS was an MP. The
permission to apprehend him had been denied. The two officers were also
under instructions from their immediate superiors to distance themselves
from me for a while. No wonder they hadn’t answered any of my calls.
I was later to learn that some kind of political initiative was afoot to forge
an alliance between MS and other politicians in Bihar to derail the ruling
party there. It did not matter that MS was wanted in a serious case of
conspiracy to derail the very same government that was denying permission
for his arrest. It also did not matter that MS was regularly in touch with the
ISI and Kashmiri militants.
Thus came to a rather farcical end my effort to get one of the most
dreaded criminals in India arrested after a chance encounter with him at an
airport lounge. Even subsequently, he was not arrested by the Delhi Police
as a co-conspirator in the case of the attempted assassination of Tejpal and
Bahal. His name was, however, mentioned in the charge sheet of the case in
‘khana (column) number 2’ as an accused against whom sufficient evidence
had not come on record.
*
Tyagi, in the interim, was under trial with his associates in the Tarun
Tejpal–Aniruddha Bahal assassination attempt case in the Tees Hazari
court. He was often taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police to the Roorkee,
Bulandshahr and Haridwar courts for cases that were pending trial there. As
the days went by the limelight on Tyagi faded. He was lodged in Tihar Jail
and occasionally taken to courts in and outside Delhi, escorted by a police
guard whose strength kept declining progressively. Tyagi knew it was time
for him to flee.
Those who have driven on highways in India are familiar with built-up
areas coming up ever so frequently, creeping up to the road within sniffing
distance of the busy traffic. Wayside dhabas—eateries popular for their
fresh food served steaming hot—petrol stations, motor workshops and
grocery stores dot either side of the road in a haphazard and chaotic manner.
Pedestrians hop across the road as if they are on a suicide mission. Often, in
larger townships, a bus station, with countless passengers carrying all
manner of luggage, adds to the cosmic chaos that is India. Decrepit and
ramshackle buses, overloaded with passengers, zoom in and out of the
terminals, leaving a trail of dust behind them. Small puddles of putrid water
dot the landscape like festering wounds. Yet, bus and railway stations in
India, with their hustle and bustle, are living testimonies of the energy and
drive of the country.
On 13 September 2003, Head Constable Baburam, Constable
Ramchander and Constable Neeraj Kumar of the armed police of Uttar
Pradesh stood at one such bus stand in Roorkee, a city in the Haridwar
district of Uttarakhand in north India. They had in their custody none other
than Tyagi. It had been over two years since he had been arrested by the
Special Cell of Delhi Police. He had been moved from Tihar Jail to the
Muzaffarnagar district jail in Uttar Pradesh, as he was required to appear
before courts in that jurisdiction. He was being taken to the Roshnabad
district jail of Haridwar from where he had to be produced before the
Roshnabad court the following day.
It was an unusually hot and humid post-monsoon afternoon, typical of
the plains of north India. The policemen, lugging their .303 rifles, were
perspiring in the oppressive heat, their uniforms drenched with sweat and
their alertness dipping by the minute. Their detenue Bhupinder Tyagi was
equally agitated and fidgety, but not because of the muggy air. He was
waiting, rather impatiently, for his freedom.
At about 4 p.m., a red motorcycle with registration number UP 07C 78X1
drove slowly by the group and stopped a couple of yards away. The two
riders got off, approached the policemen and began abusing them. Before
the cops could react they were pushed to the ground. Tyagi broke free and
ran to the bike as did his rescuers. They hopped on to the motorcycle with
Tyagi in the middle and began riding away. One of them saw Constable
Neeraj Kumar run after them and opened fire at the policeman. Kumar was
hit in the chest and fell down. However, almost as a reflex action, from his
prone position Kumar aimed his .303 rifle at them and pulled the trigger.
The first and only shot fired by him got the hoodlum sitting at the rear end
of the bike. Not surprisingly—given its muzzle velocity and the short range
—the bullet went through his body, then Tyagi’s and finally pierced through
the third gangster who was driving the bike. The motorcycle crashed to the
ground with its three riders thrown off in a heap. Constable Neeraj Kumar,
injured grievously, lay at a distance writhing in pain. He was rushed to the
hospital and fortunately survived. The three gangsters, however, were
declared dead on arrival at the hospital.
Thus Tyagi’s life came to a bloody end, perhaps a fitting culmination to
the trail of terror and killings he had unleashed in the plains of north India.
The law finally caught up with MS in September 2016 when he was
arrested on the orders of the Patna High Court. Since the prisons in Bihar
had earlier failed to keep MS in custody as he had compromised the jail
staff, either through intimidation or by lucre, the Supreme Court, in
February 2017, on a request made by the Government of Bihar, ordered that
he be transferred to Tihar Jail in Delhi.
MS, reportedly a much mellower person now, is cooling his heels in an
isolation ward of Tihar. Quite recently, he petitioned the Supreme Court to
be moved to the general ward from his solitary confinement. The court
dismissed his petition, asking him to submit his request to the director
general of Tihar Prisons. Nothing more has been heard since.
With the sahib (lord) behind bars, in a prison located several hundred
kilometres away from his fiefdom and where his writ doesn’t run, Siwan
sleeps better. Kidnappings, dacoities and murders are on the decline and the
law and order situation is much better. But given the vicissitudes of politics
and our criminal justice system, only time will tell how long the sahib and
his riyasat (state) are kept away from each other.
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