Authors: Adrian Levy
In March 1993 General K.V. Krishna Rao had arrived to replace Saxena as governor. Formerly India’s Chief of Army Staff, General Rao was one of the most influential military figures in the subcontinent. His greatest source of pride was his command of a division that had liberated much of what would become north-eastern Bangladesh during the 1971 war with Pakistan. Since retiring in 1983, ‘the Iron General’, as Saklani called him, had gone on to ‘restore peace’ in some of India’s most troublesome border areas: Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura. This was his second stint in Kashmir, and he was coming at it with a firm resolve to sort things out and stymie Pakistan’s operations in the valley.
The two generals’ mettle and the Unified Command had been tested almost immediately at Hazratbal, literally ‘the Majestic Place’, a marble lakeside mosque in Srinagar said to house a single hair of the Prophet Mohammed’s beard, a holy relic encased in a phial of gold. In October 1993 Hazratbal had become a haven for militants, who trusted that no government would want to be seen to defile a place so holy in order to evict them. Claiming to have received intelligence that these gunmen intended to steal the beard relic so as to inflame the feelings of India’s 120 million Muslims, Kashmir’s new governor ordered a siege of the mosque by two battalions. In 1963, the last time there had been rumours that the relic was under threat, Kashmir had been plunged into sixteen days of tumultuous rioting. Now an armed cordon surrounded the holy site, with eighty-six worshippers (and alleged militants) holed up inside, while PM Narasimha Rao in New Delhi faced by-election battles in four states where the Hindu nationalist BJP was gaining ground. On the eighth day of the siege, a Friday, thousands of Muslims headed for mosques across the valley to pray
and protest, only for the Indian forces to open fire at Bijbehara, north of Anantnag, leaving fifty men and boys dead, and two hundred wounded.
Pictures of the massacre heaped more pressure on PM Rao. In Srinagar, a horrified Saklani brokered long rounds of talks with all involved in the Hazratbal siege, and these negotiations eventually ended the standoff a weary three and a half weeks after it had begun. This was seen as a victory for both the Security Advisor and New Delhi, whose objective all along had been to stamp their authority on a lawless holy place. To make sure things did not blow up again, a military bunker was set up outside the mosque. This inflamed the Movement, which would cite it as the reason for not observing the ceasefire of 1995, and attacking the Amarnath pilgrimage.
But in November 1993, Saklani had been elated at the outcome of Hazratbal. Three days later he was certain the tide was turning in India’s favour when news broke that Langrial, the famed Movement commander, had been captured. He told the officers gathered before him at the Unified Command meetings that the Movement was on the ropes, and his confidence seemed justified as the outfit struggled to reassert itself with the botched kidnapping and execution of Major Bhupinder Singh, an act of brutality that New Delhi was glad to hold up as proof positive of Pakistan-inspired barbarism.
In February 1994, after the Movement’s Kashmir commander, the Afghani, had been captured along with its General Secretary, Masood Azhar, Saklani had told the Governor that the outfit was all but neutered, since its most significant operatives were now behind bars. He had visited Masood in jail, to see what made him tick: ‘He sat there, very calm, his beard neatly combed, in a cell of twenty or so fighters, pleasantly chatting with me, telling me all that he had thought and done. Talk, talk, talk. He was such a talker. He told me how a Russian sniper had taken potshots, leaving him with a limp.’
However, in June 1994 it was Saklani’s turn to feel the heat. The Movement hit back, abducting Kim Housego and David Mackie from Aru, and demanding the release of Masood, the Afghani and Langrial. For more than two weeks New Delhi and the families of the hostages
had pulled in opposite directions, David Housego urging action, while the huge military machine whose priorities were the annual Amarnath pilgrimage and roasting Pakistan was inclined to do nothing radical, fast. When the two Westerners had been released Saklani celebrated, although in truth he was not sure how it had happened, or if New Delhi was entitled to take any of the credit. As he saw it, this was David Housego’s single-handed triumph (and the army’s secret shame). And by the year’s end, although Saklani still felt India was winning, the official figures told a grim story: 6,043 killed in terrorist-related incidents in just twelve months, the worst year on record. More than four times as many civilians were dead as members of the security forces. Just to drive the knife in further as far as the locals were concerned, 75 per cent of the fatalities were Muslims. Every night he went to bed in his plain bedroom in Church Lane, General Saklani quietly cursed Girish Saxena.
Looking down through the helicopter’s window late on the afternoon of 8 July 1995, Saklani surveyed a steady stream of Hindu pilgrims. Army patrols were in position, and hundreds of Rashtriya Rifles were bedding down at Chandanwari, just in case things got choppy. He had spotted a few Westerners too, trekking or camping. But there wasn’t much he could do, other than circle above them. He’d inform the police of the locations when he got back to Srinagar, and they could send constables up on foot. He dictated some notes to his bagman, Altaf Ahmed, a police security official who worked in his office, and who was sitting behind him. A small man, Altaf did not attract attention, but he was capable of recalling everything anyone said and did.
Now that dusk was drawing in, Saklani turned to his pilot, Group Captain Jasminder Kahlon, and ordered him back to base. Kahlon was an ace, possibly the best India had, and Saklani liked being out with him and Altaf. ‘Just then, the Group Captain spotted a lone figure near Pissu Top,’ Altaf recalled. Swooping down, they saw it was a man, roughly dressed and limping badly, making his way down the mountainside beside a stream. ‘We thought he was some kind of Paki infiltrator,’ said Altaf. ‘His face was pitch-black.’ Saklani remembered: ‘I
told Altaf to load a weapon and take that boy out.’ Kahlon advised caution. Something was not right. The man was flimsily dressed, without any kind of coat or backpack. He did not look like a
mujahid
. His face was striped with mud. But who else would be up here, and take such fright at seeing an Indian helicopter? What was a man in civvies doing at this altitude? ‘I can’t get in any closer,’ Kahlon said. ‘The downdraught might blow him over the edge, or the rockface might take out one of our rotors.’
On the ground, John Childs had been thrown into utter panic by the sight of the helicopter. ‘I had heard it first from a distance, heading down the valley along which I was making my descent. I was in really bad shape, and I thought I might be hallucinating. Without me seeing it, it seemed to turn around as if to leave. “Just my luck,” I said to myself. “They’ve found the hostages, and here I am left trying to escape on my own.”’ A few minutes later John heard the helicopter returning, and suddenly it reared up on him from over a ridge. ‘I was terrified. It was a big military thing, with gun muzzles poking out of the window and men dressed in uniform.’ In a split second John had convinced himself it was the Pakistanis, who had been searching for him on behalf of the kidnap party. He burrowed down behind a rock.
Inside the cabin, Saklani and Kahlon glimpsed the man’s face. ‘He was of European complexion,’ Saklani recalled. ‘That’s not a militant!’ Altaf shouted. Kahlon butted in: ‘He’s foreigner. Let’s get him.’ He delicately moved the chopper so its tail faced the man on the ground, showing him the saffron, white and green of the Indian Air Force insignia. John recalled the moment: ‘Stupidly, I was running away (as if I could get away!) when I saw them swing it around so I could see the flag of India.’ Saklani beckoned him over, but in a confusion between East and West, John thought he was being instructed to lie flat on the ground.
Then, with his usual poise, Kahlon gently brought the helicopter down, resting one of its runners on the hillside as delicately as if he were placing a glass of water on a mat. John said: ‘It was an incredible feat. One of the runners was still floating in the air, and the rotors were whipping just inches from the rock.’ Saklani threw the door
open, and screamed above the rotors: ‘Now! Now! Now! Come now! What are you doing here?’ John shouted: ‘I was abducted! Save me! Please!’ Saklani couldn’t believe it: one of the hostages. ‘Oh the gods, this is a miracle, this is a miracle from the gods!’ he shouted.
The helicopter stayed steady just long enough for Altaf to haul John inside. As they rose high in the sky, the vast landscape merged into one enormous, crinkled canvas. John looked down through the glass, exhausted and panting, trying to identify his route. ‘We have to go back for the others!’ he shouted, worried that with every second that passed he risked lose his bearings. Saklani smiled, ignoring him. ‘You’re safe now,’ he told him. ‘We’re the good guys.’
The minute the helicopter touched down in Srinagar, news of John Childs’ recovery broke in the press. Jane Schelly, Julie Mangan and Cath Moseley saw a television newsflash at the government guesthouse where they were now staying, next door to Saklani’s complex. ‘Hostage released. It was the best news we could have possibly hoped for,’ recalled Jane. As far as they understood it, John had been given up by the kidnappers, which meant there was a chance that the others might be freed too. Jane, Julie and Cath were delighted, but couldn’t help also feeling jealous. They had to talk to John fast. He was the bridge to their missing partners.
But how to get to him? Since arriving at the government villa from the unwelcoming UN guesthouse, they had been pretty much cut off from the outside world. None of the reports they saw, generated by Embassy staff or from General Saklani’s office, carried any of the details that the BBC’s Yusuf Jameel had put together in the Press Enclave. Nothing at all was coming from the kidnappers’ camp. For the past four days Jane, Julie and Cath had been left to dwell on every possible gruesome and bloody scenario: death, gunshot wounds, grenade injuries. But they had been given no hard facts at all, not even been told who al Faran was. And the vacuum had been filled with a torrent of rumours in the local Kashmir and Urdu-language press: one of the hostages had been fatally injured after falling down a crevasse; all of them had been smuggled across the border and were
in Pakistan; the kidnappers had pledged to shoot the hostages if the Indians launched any kind of rescue attempt.
Jane, Julie and Cath were at sea. The only people they had talked to regularly were their families back home and the diplomatic liaison officers Philip Barton and Tim Buchs. Barton was still struggling to find a secure phone line, and had brought them very little news from the Indian side, bar the repeated mantra that a ‘massive search’ was ongoing, while Buchs was wrapped up in trying to assist John Childs, with more senior US State Department officials said to be flying up from New Delhi.
Surely finding John would lead to the location of the others, Julie reasoned. What was his physical condition, they asked. The diplomats confessed that they knew no more than the women did, as he had not yet been debriefed. They saw on the news that John had been transferred by ambulance to army headquarters, where it was expected he would receive medical treatment.
A few hours later, General Saklani emerged to make a brief statement. John Childs, he said, was in remarkably good health given his recent ordeal, and was ‘an excellent witness’. But by the end of the day, the women had still not got anywhere nearer him. And then the story suddenly changed: John Childs hadn’t been released by the kidnappers. He had
escaped
. This revelation, with all its terrible possible consequences for those left behind, winded Jane, Julie and Cath.
John Childs was overwhelmed by the attention, surrounded by crisp officers and attentive diplomats. ‘From the moment I reached safety I kept saying to everyone, “Look, I can take you to the place, it’s near the Amarnath pilgrimage route. Jane knows the place too, she was there a week ago, but we have to move quickly, before the kidnappers get the hostages away.” I said it to the Governor’s advisor who picked me up, and to the US State Department people who greeted me in Srinagar. To the army and FBI. But nobody was listening.’ It seemed to John that everyone just wanted him to shut up, with the FBI and the State Department being the most forceful. ‘They arranged for a satellite phone so I could call home, for which I was
very grateful. But they warned me not to say too much about my rescue to anyone. As far as I could see, they were trying to stop me shooting my mouth off, and said they intended to get me out of Srinagar as quickly as possible. I can only guess they were thinking more about their relationship with India than about the hostages and our ordeal.’
Weak and still disorientated, John did not argue. Instead, he did what he always did when he felt threatened: retreated into his shell. As the hours ticked by, a gnawing realisation washed over him. ‘I saw that I was not going to be able to help the others at all, and I knew full well that my escape would have made our captors more livid and vengeful.’ It was a shocking realisation that would never leave him. As the diplomats and officials fussed around him, he began to contemplate the truth of the situation: that he had traded his life for theirs. The others would have done the same, he told himself at one point, thinking back to Don’s attempt to slip off. But there were no happy endings and no clean-cut choices in a dirty war – that much he had learned from his brief, claustrophobic time inside the
gujjar
hut. Explorers and adventurers of all kinds knew as much: that there will come a time, whether on the exposed face of some crag or lost in the wilderness, when the choices you have to make will ultimately challenge your humanity. Most of all, he was dreading meeting Cath, Julie and Jane, who he knew would have a million questions. He owed it to them to tell them as much as he could, but to make matters worse his gut was still in spasms from the aftermath of his physical ordeal. He was sick, weak, injured and confused, and desperate to get back to his predictable life in Connecticut.