Chapter One: The Massacre

Nikunj Niyogi sat on the cot inside the dilapidated home of Begum Hasina Wahid and wondered how long he will survive. He knew the aggressors are closing in and will barge through the door soon. He checked his gun; fully loaded Heckler & Koch with an extra magazine… he knew it is not a deterrent but would hold them back for a while…he might take few of them down especially in a closed space combat. But it did not matter if he lived or become a martyred for Maa Bharati… having established the coordinates of the terrorist camp he felt relieved. Begum Hasina Wahid, the septuagenarian had taken the small chit to the Army camp some 20 km east of her modest village with express instruction to hand over the same to Col. Debabrat Das. Nikunj and Debabrat were batchmates at the NDA, Khadagvasla, while Debabrat continued with regular army, Nikunj was recruited by the army intelligence and special ops. Both were of the rank of Colonel but in case of Nikunj, the title is seldom used. 

The kaleidoscope of his life played on as Nikunj waited for the inevitable. He had to kill those two lowly terrorists because they had seen him and sounded alarm through their satellite phones. Nikunj belonged to a large family, he was the youngest of nine children and there was a gap of seven years between him and his immediate elder brother. In the younger days in school and academy, he used to joke that he was a perfect example of an accident. His father owned a small grocery shop in the congested locality of Paharganj, New Delhi. The residence, if one can call it such, was the 2.5 rooms atop the shop. His father would open the shop around 8 am and close at 9 pm, every single day as even one day closure meant less food on the plates of eleven hungry souls besides loss in the business. When Nikunj joined Raisina Bengali School in Class-I along with a bunch of bubbling kids, his eldest brother cleared Civil Services exam and was poised to join the Foreign Service while his second brother completed his Master’s program and hoped to join his elder sibling into the civil services the next year.

Nikunj liked his school, it allowed him abundant space to run around and make friends and learn new things every day. He became particularly pally with a kid named Rudro Prashad Chatterjee aka Rudro. They became inseparable as the years passed, sharing the same bench at the back of the class. Rudro belonged to a well-to-do illustrious Bengali family, his uncle was a famous character actor in both Bengali and Hindi film industry, but he was very down to earth person and took care of Nikunj, bringing extra lunch everyday to feed him knowing the economic conditions of Niyogi family.

One day, when Nikunj was in the 8^th grade, he got a call from the principal’s office, visibly shaken, he went there to find his second brother Bikash Niyogi, who was now an IPS officer, sitting with the principal discussing something somberly. The principal, instead of admonishing him, put his hand on Nikunj’s head in a manner of blessings and told him to gather his school bag and go home with his brother. Later he got to know that his father while managing the shop had a massive cardiac stroke and succumbed before any medical help could reach him. During the 10-day mourning period, Rudro would drop in every day after school bringing food for the entire family. Nikunj found an anchor in Rudro to overcome the irreversible loss of father.

Graduating from school, Rudro joined St. Stephen’s College where he met Aniket Mathur while Nikunj was selected for National Defence Academy where he met Debabrat Das… both found new best friend but Rudro and Nikunj remained in touch through regular communication. In time both sets of friends graduated with flying colors. Rudro went on to become an IPS Officer while Aniket continued with his master’s program followed by a PhD in Economics & Current Affairs. Debabrat showed all round prowess both academic as well as on field, particularly as a marksman. Nikunj, though was not as perfect as Debabrat on field activities, he was far ahead in academics especially in mathematics and coding. Another god gifted talent of Nikunj was his ability to grasp languages, he was already fluent in Punjabi, Urdu, all 4 south Indian languages besides English, Hindi and his mother tongue Bengali. He had picked up the southern languages from his fellow cadets, Punjabi and Urdu from the streets of Paharganj becoming a multilingual at a very young age.

After the graduation from NDA, Nikunj was asked to report at the Army HQ in New Delhi and seek out certain Colonel Diwakar Pandey. The Army HQ was huge with hundreds of people working in the building, both uniformed and in civilian dress. It took some effort to locate Col. Pandey but one look at him and you can’t miss the “fauji” written on his face with a handlebar moustache adorning the large face and it matched his booming voice as well.

Col. Pandey asked Nikunj to follow him and they ended up in a room or rather a hall full of electronic gadgets and computers, the temperature of the room was closed to freezing point, at least that’s what Nikunj felt entering it. Col took him to a console and asked him to sit before moving on to another person at the corner. Nikunj was startled as the computer screen came alive and a south Indian gentleman started asking him questions about him. After a bit of initial hesitation, Nikunj spoke fluently in Malayalam first and as the interviewer changed languages he followed him with Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. After almost 45 minutes, the person on the screen seemed satisfied and bade him goodbye. The process wasn’t over, a Sardarji came on the screen and spoke to him Punjabi followed by a Maulvi in Urdu. Both seemed satisfied with his prowess of the languages.

Meanwhile, Col. Pandey has been observing the facial reactions of Nikunj on a large screen along with psychiatrist Dr. Geetika Sharma and both were very impressed with Nikunj who showed no discomfort while rapidly switching languages as if they were his mother tongue.

The next day, Nikunj joined a special school of languages to learn Arabic including all variations spoken through the middle-east followed by Russian, French and German. At the end of the year, he was fluent in all four and expressed his desire to learn Mandarin as well. His request was neither turned down nor accepted but he was put through a fast-track course in Spanish. At the end of the language school, Col. Diwakar Pandey reappeared and told Nikunj that he has earned a well-deserved furlough of three days to meet his family but he must report at Col’s home at Delhi Cantt. at 6 am the following Monday for a visit to the countryside.

Sharp at 6 am, Colonel, Nikunj and Sergent Bakshi set out for the countryside trip. After driving for almost 3.5 hours through the villages and mufassil towns of Haryana, Colonel stopped his Maruti Gypsy in front of an abandoned warehouse near the Punjab border. He honked thrice and couple of sepoys opened the huge gate of the warehouse and saluted… he drove inside the compound. The place had a spooky feeling with abandoned rusted machineries, delivery trucks in dilapidated conditions lying on the foreground. They went inside the building which could collapse any time, but the Col moved confidently ahead followed by his Sergent and Nikunj. He stopped in front of a sliding door and scanned a card which resembled an ATM card, in fact it worked as an ATM card as well. The doors slid open to reveal an elevator on the other side… it took them down to the basement, Nikunj had a quick look at the buttons when they illuminated as Colonel used his card to scan and press the button, it showed 4 floors below the ground level. As the elevator door opened, they were greeted by a person who looked like twin brother of Colonel Diwakar Pandey. In fact, Colonel Sudhakar Pandey was the twin brother of Colonel Diwakar Pandey but excelled in a rarified field of counter intelligence. After the pleasantries, Col. Diwakar formally handed over Lieutenant Nikunj Niyogi to his brother to train him in counter intelligence. It would take at least a year for him to master the craft, the brothers assumed. They were mistaken, in three months’ time, Nikunj could easily dodge and escape his tails and one occasion caught an agent unaware. By the end of the month six, he had become a pro and an excellent marksman. Colonel Sudhakar Pandey or EssPee as he was affectionately called, was very happy and informed his brother that their asset is ready for commissioning.

Nikunj was brought back to reality with gunshot sounds, he readied himself for the inevitable. He looked through the tiny hole of the window and selected his prey.   

It took Begum Hasina almost the whole day to walk through the valley and hillocks avoiding the main serpentine road to reach the army camp. It took a long chat with the sentry at the gate with her broken Pashtu-Urdu mixed Hindi to explain her urgent need to meet the colonel. Unfortunately, Col. Das had gone to meet the Lt. General at the local HQ and is expected to reach by sundown. The sentry allowed Hasina Begum to sit inside the hutment and offered water and biscuits.

The Colonel came back to the camp just before the sunset and was informed of the old lady waiting for him. He immediately sent for her and ushered her inside his office. He called a soldier who knew Pashtu to interpret her narration. Col. Debabrat Das asked Major Ramprasad and Lt. Joginder to form a small troupe of 4 soldiers each and go with the lady to the village while he consulted with the Lt. General to plan out the strike at the terror camp as per the coordinates sent by Nikunj Niyogi.

The team of Major Ramprasad and Lt. Joginder along with Hasina Begum reached the hamlet in about an hour’s time when the dusk was settling in the hills… in the faint light, they witnessed a horrifying scene. The entire hamlet was completely flattened and bodies were strewn all over the small clearing. On closer look, there were at least six bodies which were clearly that of the terrorists still holding their AK-47 guns and a headless body. Hasina begum was inconsolable but still identified the bodies of the villagers and from the attire of the headless body she identified it to be of Nikunj Niyogi. The body did not have any identity papers except a bundle of cash and firmly held Heckler & Koch handgun. There were bullet marks on the body which indicated he must have died before the ghastly beheading happened.

Major Ramprasad called the camp through radio and was instructed to stay put at the hamlet and be vigilant as the extremists are likely to return to retrieve the bodies of their fallen brethren’s. The Colonel assured that reinforcement will reach early in the morning.

The next day, two things happened; first the dead bodies were buried with full religious customs and Begum Hasina Wahid was taken to a safe house in the city under the care of the army. She had no relatives…her only son had died in the Kargil War. The second instance happened after sundown; a squadron of Sukhoi flew in and flattened the extremist training camp hidden in the jungles. A squadron of highly trained commandos took care of the fleeing terrorists. No prisoners were taken in because that was their instructions.

Later intelligence report confirmed over 100 dead terrorists but their leader Mukhtar Abbas Pathan had escaped the camp along with few of his close aids long before the commando operation started.