Bookexcerpts

Rather than take follow-up action on the input, every effort was made to prove it a hoax — a clear example of inter-agency rivalry.

“world cup ka final 25 ko tay hua hai”. The date was quite clear – it’ll be on the 25th of a month, but what it did not give away was the location of the attack.

Kumar writes that some (officers) “in central intelligence agency (referring to IB and RAW) were incredulous and thought we had cooked it all up”. “Rather than take follow up action on the input, every effort was made to prove it was a hoax – a clear example of inter-agency rivalry”, he adds. But some in the agency had faith in the Delhi Police and they began work on the case. The next email was more sophisticatedly coded. It contained only numbers like .7 .02 .5 .002 and so on.

Kumar writes various cryptographers, research organisations began work on codes but nobody could crack it. “Pramod went to the extent of contacting a friend of his based in the US, who worked for a cryptography company, to help us on an urgent basis. The company quoted a price for the job, which was prohibitive but worthwhile considering that many innocent lives were in danger and national prestige was at stake,” Kumar writes. The plan to hire a foreign company ultimately didn’t work out.

Interestingly, a friend of Pramod Kushwah – Vivek Thakur, who was jobless at that time, saved them. He cracked the codes within few hours as each letter of English alphabet had been number from .0 to .9 by terrorists. The formula cited by Thakur to decipher the code worked. About Thakur, Kumar only mentions that he was in Delhi to look for a job. “He was neither a cop nor a computer whiz-kid nor a cryptologist. He was an unemployed youth who had come looking for a job in Delhi. He had nowhere to go except to Pramod, who had been his senior in school”.

“We then realized that India Gate was going to be the target of an attack, as mentioned in code in the email date 15 February.”

The date for attack was fixed as 25 February and the target was India Gate.

“In the days before the new security system was imposed, milling crowds of men, women and children thronged the area around India Gate, along with icecream and snack vendors. At any given point, a minimum of four to five thousand people were present there. From a terrorist’s viewpoint, what better target could there be than this, and that too at an iconic war memorial? The impact would have been earth-shattering as the earlier attack on the Parliament House in 2001,” Kumar writes.

Kumar adds that he was summoned to a midnight meeting on February 22 at the residence of then home minister L K Advani where heads of various intelligence agencies, the home secretary were also present.

After Kumar gave his presentation on the terrorists’ plan, “It was clear to all that there was an urgent need to deploy sufficient armed forces at India Gate... A detachment of Indian army was to be deployed immediately,” he adds.

“When the next day broke, early morning joggers on Rajpath were surprised to see army men wielding light machine guns stationed all around India Gate in full battle gear. A few light tanks were also stationed at strategic points for effect,” Kumar discloses.

He finishes the chapter saying, “if a visitor to India Gate today is unable to approach the base of the war memorial for a closer look, she can curse us if she wants, now that I have let the cat out of the bag”.