Authors: Adrian Levy
The Afghani reeled. He told his comrades that they must risk everything to free his brother in
jihad
. He immediately diverged from the ISI plan and entered Srinagar, where he launched a reckless and savage frontal attack on security forces in the Elahi Bagh quarter of the city, the firefight (on 16 January 1994) lasting thirty hours. The Afghani had hoped to take prisoners to trade for Langrial, but he was lucky to escape with his own life. Three days later he tried again, this time kidnapping an Indian major, Bhupinder Singh, but the authorities refused to negotiate. In his fury, the Afghani executed the Indian officer and then went into hiding, leaving the Movement’s embryonic cells to melt into the dense pine forests.
When Brigadier Badam heard the news from Indian Kashmir, he was furious, Masood would later write. He immediately sent for
Maulana Khalil in Karachi, and warned him that this was not the streamlined operation the ISI had paid for. ‘A number of messages were sent to the chief commanders in Kashmir to join hands. We did not, however, receive any confirmation of our orders,’ wrote Masood. Someone senior from the Movement would have to travel to Kashmir to get the Afghani back on course. The obvious choice was General Secretary Masood Azhar, who in recent times had been travelling widely, acting as Maulana Khalil’s roving ambassador and chief fund-raiser abroad, armed with a range of doctored passports provided by the ISI. Whatever his private thoughts about going to India, Masood hid them, writing vaingloriously in his journal: ‘It was my duty in the organisation to maintain unity among the
mujahideen
, and it was felt necessary that I needed to be there to fulfill this job. Heads had to be brought together, prayers must be said.’
But although Masood’s message rang clear in the ears of fighting men like the Afghani, the editor of the
Voice of the Mujahid
was not a fighting man. Once before he had demonstrated his lack of judgement in a live-fire situation, and this would be his first foray back onto the battlefield.
In late January 1994, as Masood said his farewells, his father, Master Alvi, worried that his son was not ready to grab
jihad
by the throat. ‘Was he not better leading from Karachi?’ Master Alvi wrote in a desperate letter to one of Masood’s brothers, later seized by Pakistani investigators. The ISI was too busy concocting a cover story to listen. Masood was now Wali Adam Issa, a Portuguese businessman. The Movement’s contacts in Britain had obtained a stolen Portuguese passport through the
maulvi
of a mosque in east London, and the ISI had had it stamped with Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi visas. Everyone was convinced that this mission was well within Masood’s capabilities, as he had already travelled widely around Europe and the Horn of Africa, even assisting another merging
jihad
general in Sudan, Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi construction tycoon, who had fled there from Afghanistan.
Masood Azhar arrived in New Delhi on 29 January, via Dhaka, on a Biman Bangladesh fight, in a newly tailored Western suit, his beard trimmed, he would write, ‘to resemble those worn by captains of industry’ he had seen in the pages of
Time
. He had clipped his fingernails and remembered to shower and use anti-perspirant, but the Indian immigration official still stared him down. Within minutes, his new nylon shirt was soaked with sweat. He didn’t look Portuguese, the officer observed. Masood would later write that he had wondered if the man ‘could smell Bahawalpur’ on him. Luckily, he had practised his response. He was originally from Gujrat, in Pakistan’s Punjab, but had left for Portugal some years before. The officer looked down at his screen. He scrutinised the passport again, and waved Masood through.
Masood headed for the five-star Ashoka Hotel in Chanakyapuri, the kind of hushed, moneyed place that asked no questions as long as the bills were paid. Delighted, he unpacked his bag and called his contact, a Kashmiri carpet exporter. This man was an old hand. He brought Masood some hot bread and
nihari
, made that morning at Karim’s in Old New Delhi. ‘Eat,’ he told him, according to Masood’s written recollections. ‘Relax. No need to hurry. The Kashmir plan is running a little late.’
Masood the tourist. His first stop was naturally the town of Deoband, a three-hour journey east in Uttar Pradesh state. Afterwards, he browsed Old New Delhi’s Islamist bookshops and visited roadside shrines to long-dead
maulanas
. He went shopping in New Delhi’s Connaught Place, buying boiled sweets, woollen socks, a bottle of talcum and a small brass bell that he thought would be useful when he came to convene his first
majlis
, or council meeting, with the
mujahids
of Kashmir. What did you buy for fighting men, he wondered. He found a place selling compasses, and bought a dozen as presents for the field commanders.
Finally, on 9 February, after twelve days of shopping, eating and waiting, they were ready for him. Wearing his comfortable
kurta
pyjama suit and skullcap as if he were a returning
haji
, Masood flew to Srinagar. As soon as he arrived he was thrown into a panic by the lines of khaki-clad security men, and he began shaking as a Kashmiri
policeman with a clipboard approached him, having spotted the Portuguese passenger on the flight manifest. ‘Foreigner registration,’ the officer demanded, taking down Masood’s details. He felt horribly exposed, but emerged from the airport unscathed.
During the taxi ride into the city the sheer scale of the Indian military presence became clear to Masood for the first time. The sight of Kashmiris with their pony carts cowering beside the road as vast army convoys thundered past made him shake with fear. Thinking back over all those speeches and newspaper articles he had written, it dawned on him that the reality was far worse than he had imagined: he had ‘never seen more miserable-looking people anywhere in the world’. Srinagar in February was dark, dank and freezing, the dirty brown ice sludge on the roads splattering the people on the pavements. Locals hung around braziers filled with burning rubbish while Indian soldiers looked on enviously, shivering at their positions, dressed in balaclavas, winter-issue coats and oversized galoshes. Most shops had their shutters rolled down, and parts of Dal Lake were frozen over. There was not a tourist to be seen. Shuddering, as he wrote later, Masood searched for the Qasmia
madrassa
in downtown Srinagar, following the instructions he had memorised. That evening, safely indoors, as he sat beneath a quilt warming his hands on a Kashmiri
kangri
or charcoal burner, the Afghani slipped in.
They would leave at first light, the fighter announced, heading south for Anantnag. The leaders of the three militant groups that had merged to form the Movement would be waiting for them in the forest near the isolated village of Matigund, a difficult journey east of Anantnag along unmetalled mountain roads, a four-hour drive from here, possibly six, depending on the snow and the Indian security presence. ‘Before we left, one of the local Kashmiri
mujahids
gave me his
pheran
[Kashmiri cloak] to wear,’ Masood wrote later. ‘The Afghani also got two hens, which he kept in the boot of the car.’ Since they were going into the hills, the Afghani explained, they might have to fend for themselves. Only then did it occur to Masood that he ‘might have to fight’.
At Matigund, Masood, by now exhausted, was greeted with salt tea and unleavened
lavash
by ‘Brother Raees’, a Kashmiri militant who explained that he was right-hand man to Sikander, the Movement’s local District Commander. Sikander had proved himself a trustworthy lieutenant to the Afghani, but he was not present: ‘He had skidded on the ice on a mountain road and crashed his motorbike.’ He would attempt to reach them some time the next day.
Fifteen
mujahids
were waiting in the village house that had been commandeered for the
majlis
. Bearded and wearing an assortment of khaki uniforms and tribal dress, they were led by Abu Ghazi, a veteran tactician and weapons expert who had previously been based at Camp Yawar in Khost. He was now chief trainer at the Movement’s main camp in Kashmir, concealed a stiff one-and-a-half-hour walk east, far beyond the point where the electricity pylons and telephone lines ended. Sixty recruits were currently there, Ghazi said as he gratefully accepted a wad of cash that Masood had brought from his ISI benefactors. ‘We saluted them warm-heartedly and soon a
majlis-i-jihad
[
jihad
council] was in full swing,’ Masood wrote.
The men, who had been fighting for their survival in the pine forests, were greedy for news, and they pressed forward as Masood began to speak. ‘What an exhilarating scene it was!’ he noted. ‘In front of me and around, were faces shining with the spirit of
jihad
. Decorating the chests of these young men were magazines and grenades, and within them burned high the flame of courage and bravery. They cradled their Kalashnikovs in their laps like babies. Some of them had rocket launchers as well as carbines that they had seized from the Indian Army.’
Mesmerised by the surrounding weaponry and the proximity of men at his beck and call, Masood spoke uninterrupted for several hours, explaining why they needed to come together while all around him held a respectful silence. Out in the surrounding forest, he was informed, militants acting as lookouts also listened in via their radio sets. ‘Their presence was vital where they were, and so they had to content themselves by listening to us over the airwaves.’ At 2 a.m. Masood was politely interrupted. The brothers had not eaten all day.
‘Our historic meeting ended when one of our companions informed us that the dinner is served (one of the two hens).’ Dishes of gravy and chicken were set down beside a pile of cold
girda
, a striated Kashmiri flat bread. Afterwards, as the fighting men stretched out, Masood got up. ‘I quietly took up one of the Kalashnikovs and started downstairs, to join the
mujahideen
on guard. Halfway down, in the darkness, I felt the weapon in my hands … It was cocked, and the bullet was in the chamber. A feeling of ecstasy descended upon me. My joy knew no bounds as I held the loaded gun in my hands.’ There were no older siblings to make fun of the ‘little fatty’ now.
Outside, the night sky seemed overburdened with stars. You rarely saw them in polluted Karachi. ‘It was the wee hours, a cool breeze was blowing,’ wrote Masood, imagining himself as a fighter. ‘Praise be to God who granted me an opportunity to perform guard-duty on the front of Kashmir.’ Here, on the front line of a holy
jihad
in Kashmir, he could finally expunge those stinging memories of his embarrassing departure from the battlefield at Khost.
At daybreak, the Afghani sprang a radical plan. Since there was still no sign of Commander Sikander, Masood should deliver the Friday sermon at the Jamia mosque in Anantnag. This was a unique opportunity, and it would be a defiant act, demonstrating to the Indians, who would hear about it later, that the Movement was capable of bringing its General Secretary to the heart of south Kashmir under their noses. Masood was unsure, but the Afghani reassured him, saying the town’s people had risked much by supporting the Movement, and he needed to give something back.
Reluctantly, Masood agreed. Leaving the guards behind, he, the Afghani and Sikander’s deputy Raees walked down to the car. But half an hour into the journey the vehicle spluttered and died. Masood panicked. Miles from anywhere, they set off on foot until they spied a village, where they commandeered an auto-rickshaw. ‘Raees got seated with the driver while I and the Afghani settled in the back,’ Masood wrote. Just before they reached Anantnag, the rickshaw driver noticed a BSF truck driving at speed behind them. ‘Army!’ he yelled. But it was too late. They were totally encircled.
Raees was ordered to run for it, his weapon clanking beneath his
pheran
. ‘As the soldier tried to search him he threw one man down, let off a grenade and made it to the woods,’ recalled Masood, who remained frozen to the spot, aghast at the sight of the Indian paramilitaries running towards him, firing off their weapons in all directions. For a few moments the Afghani sat calmly, holding Masood’s hand, until they were hauled into the snow, chained and thrown into separate trucks. ‘The Indian soldiers were beside themselves with joy,’ Masood wrote. ‘We were blindfolded, our hands tied behind our backs. A crowd soon gathered there, and I could hear them cheering “
Jai Hind! Bharat mata ki jai!
[Hail India! Victory to Mother India!]” We had no choice but to pray.’
Khundroo Army Camp, protected by 2nd Rashtriya Rifles and located close to the headquarters of the Indian Army’s 21 Field Commandos, was a twenty-minute drive south of Anantnag. The signboard by the gate proclaimed ‘If Paradise is on Earth it is here, it is here’, but those who lived nearby thought of it differently. Like every other army, paramilitary and police camp in the valley, Khundroo had its interrogation centre, that consumed the daily intake of the detained, holding them for weeks or months without reference to the courts. Far away from the prying eyes of international human rights delegations, the Geneva Convention did not apply here, and the Afghani knew many comrades who had emerged from here and camps like it lame, broken and shamed. Masood had written countless column inches about prisoners who had been tortured or killed in detention centres, hung upside down, whipped, burned with blowtorches, electrocuted, near-drowned, their wounds rubbed with chilli, many of them vanishing altogether. He had never expected to find himself inside such a place, and he was terrified.
When an officer accompanied by plain-clothed agent arrived to begin their questioning, Masood shrank back and let the Afghani take the lead. ‘It was indeed a spectacular scene,’ Masood recalled later, emboldened by the passage of time. ‘His eyes were sparkling dangerously.’ The Afghani announced that he had a confession to make, but
only in front of a senior officer. Someone found ‘an old Colonel with the red dot on his forehead, which the filthy Hindus consider to be blessed’.