The fidayeen had been told to bluff their way past the guards stationed at the entrance, telling them that they were policemen on an official visit for an emergency situation. Once inside the premises, they were to head to the first floor of the residential building, to flat number 107, which was the home of the BVP chief, eighty-one-year-old Dattatrey Shirke.

‘Throw two grenades at the door of 107, storm in and kill the old bastard,’ Babar had earlier told them when going over the plan of action for the attack. ‘Kill anyone you see on the way in and on your way out. Each of you has four additional magazines. Drop the weapons into bushes or in a water body while escaping, but remember the disposal spots.’

‘Now is the time for action. The time to pay your debt to the ummah. We offer our lives here, to avenge the atrocities committed against our mothers and sisters and elders and children,’ Babar had told them.

The white ambassador, fitted with the dummy red beacon, zipped to the Patel Road junction in no time and turned left on to the road. Once the car hit Patel Road, however, it had to slow down to a crawl, thanks to the traffic. Twenty minutes later, they reached the point where the road turned towards Keshavgiri. Sohail and his associates were shocked to see barricades at the Deeksha Marg turn.

‘From where have these appeared?’ Sohail shouted to Akbar.

‘How does it matter? It is a high-profile building, so this could be a routine deployment,’ Akbar said. ‘Stay calm.’

The car, with its red beacon, had caught the attention of the security men at the barricades. The men, some of whom were in the deep blue dungarees of the Swift Reaction Team commandos, were armed with automatics, AK-47s or MP-5s, their hawk-like gazes trained on the car.

‘Sohail, some of the security men at the barricade seem to be commandos. Prepare to fire at them at will when they stop us,’ Akbar said.

‘Stop!’ one of the security men at the barricade shouted as the ambassador neared it, gesturing wildly at it to stop. The others at the barricade trained their guns at the occupants of the car. The car came to a halt.

‘Who are you?’ a security man, who seemed like an officer, asked sternly.

‘We are from the police headquarters. DCP Suraj Pawar sent us here on emergency work,’ Sohail said, fishing out an ID card.

‘I am DCP Suraj Pawar, and I did not send you here,’ the officer took out his Glock pistol and pointed it at Sohail.

At this, Akbar and Irfan grabbed their AK-47s from the floor of the car and pressed the triggers. As soon as the security personnel saw Irfan and Akbar with their AK-47s, they opened fire at the car’s occupants.

Rat-tat-tat … Rat-tat-tat … Rat-tat-tat … Rat-tat-tat