‘A moment spent in jihad gives you far more rewards than even a million prayers offered at the Kaaba, that too on the night of Lailat-ur-Qadr, the pious night of Ramadan, janaab. Babaji told me this.’

‘You are a lowly killer, and so is Al-Cheema. Both of you will die like dogs. Your religion, the noble religion of Islam, does not have place for terrorists like you, remember that.’

Shekhar fell silent, and for a long time both men stayed quiet, exhausted. Shekhar lit up a cigarette again.

Shekhar signalled to Anvay to switch off the tape recorder and camera that were installed in the room.

Shekhar turned to Salim. ‘It’s late, Farhan. You will get your dinner, then you should sleep. We begin at 3 a.m. again.’

Half an hour later, Salim got his dinner. When he was done, he requested Anvay for another cigarette. He was given a bed sheet, a blanket and a glass of water at the end of his first day at the Special Squad’s regional headquarters.

On the fifth floor, Shekhar was listening to the tapes of Farhan’s confession for the third time. He had spent ten years dealing with Pakistan-sponsored terror and sabotage activities, but he knew that the current assignment could dwarf the challenges he had encountered so far.

Later, he sent an encrypted text message to his superiors: ‘The Pakistani kid, who was nabbed at the border in 1996, had revealed Farhan’s (alias Salim) presence in India. He spoke the truth. Hyderabad’s Salim, who is in our custody, has confessed to being Farhan, who arrived from Pakistan to never return. He led a few LeT–ISI sleeper modules and had been plotting serial blasts on Ganesh Chaturthi in Hyderabad. Interrogation is on. I will update further. Shekhar.’

6. AN ENCOUNTER

6

AN ENCOUNTER

It was pitch dark and silent. Not a soul could be seen on the wide Khemkaran–Kasur road in Punjab’s Khemkaran town, which lies barely a few kilometres away from the India–Pakistan border. At 3.12 a.m. on 14 January 1996, the stillness was broken by bursts of gunfire that continued for a couple of minutes.

The bullets were being traded by members of a police night patrol team and unidentified persons who were using a truck as their shield. The patrol team had received information from military intelligence about the arrival of three Pakistani intruders on a specific terror mission and had been halting all vehicles on the roads for inspection. The occupants of this truck, however, had taken a long time to produce their travel documents and licences and had finally opened fire with their weapons, AK-47s, hidden only inches from where they sat.