Special to the Express | Calls to Pakistan & a plan to target Thackeray’s Matoshree: How Mumbai Police cracked IC814 hijacking case (2024)

During that time, I was posted as Joint Commissioner of Police in Mumbai Police and was head of the elite Mumbai Crime Branch and was informed by my boss and Mumbai Police Commissioner, R H Mendonca, about the incident and was asked to put the entire crime branch on high alert.

All of us were following the events as they unfolded with bated breath.

The very next day of the hijacking was Christmas Day, December 25, I was in my office, situated in the Mumbai Police Headquarters in Crawford Market, when at around 11 am, I had an unscheduled visitor. It was Hemant Karkare, an IPS officer from Maharashtra Cadre, who was then posted in the Mumbai office of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)*.

The flight from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked on December 24, 1999. (File Photo)

I instantly knew this was not an ordinary visit. Hemant Karkare informed me that RAW had procured a phone number which was in Mumbai and in constant touch with a phone number in Pakistan. He handed me the phone number and I immediately got down to work…

What they heard: sounds of a cattle shed

Teams were formed and were given specific work to ensure that the operation went off smoothly and efficiently… One team was dispatched to the mobile service provider to get the caller details, telephone details, the location of the cell towers, call logs and other details. Another team was asked to put the mobile number on surveillance and monitor it round the clock. All other teams were entrusted with the responsibility of locating the caller.

As the officials waited with bated breath, the first information came from the police team that had been dispatched to the mobile service provider. They reported back that the number was being used between Juhu and Malad as this is from where the mobile towers were beaming the signals.

Even though the information was useful it was not as helpful, because in a crowded megapolis like Mumbai, millions of people stay between Juhu and Malad…In 1999, the only technology that was available was to listen into the telephone conversation and get the location after a delay of a few hours.

First three days of our investigations yielded nothing. The authorities, officers were getting frustrated and more importantly, the Government of India was losing time. The only information was that the team that was listening into the phone conversations were able to hear the ambience sound of a cattle-shed in the back of the calls and they could hear azaan being offered during one of the phone calls… For two days, several crime branch teams led by senior officials combed the entire area from Juhu to Malad. They checked every cattle-shed which was near a masjid but to no avail.

It was December 28, 1999. Three days since we got the information about the Mumbai-link to the hijacking incident and we still did not have any concrete information… Just as the sun was setting at around 6 pm, came a ray of hope. The surveillance team which was monitoring the mobile phone number got an alert on their system that the phone was active. We immediately started listening and recording the call. We couldn’t believe our ears!

The Mumbai-based caller had called his handler in Pakistan and told him that he was running low on cash and needed money urgently. The caller on the other end told him to wait for 30 minutes, he will make arrangements and call back. I knew we had got our break.

I instructed everyone in the recording room to be on high alert and record every word of the next phone call. After an agonising wait of what seemed to be an eternity, the call finally came after 45 minutes at around 6.45 pm.

Graphic by Abhishek Mitra

Blue jeans, striped shirt – a meeting

The caller was a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist calling from Pakistan, he asked the person in Mumbai his whereabouts. He was alert and did not give any details or exact answer regarding his whereabouts. He gave a vague answer of him being somewhere in Jogeshwari (East), a suburb in the North-West area of Mumbai.

The JeM terrorist then informed his colleague in Mumbai that they had managed to arrange Rs 1 lakh which would be delivered by a hawala transaction. The person in Mumbai was instructed to go to the Shalimar Hotel situated at Mohammad Ali Road in South Mumbai at around 10 pm to collect the money. He was further told that a man dressed in blue coloured jeans and a striped shirt will meet him at the hotel and hand over the money. After this the call got disconnected.

There was a hushed silence in the surveillance room as all of us took a moment to realise the potential of the information we had just got… It was decided that crime branch officers dressed in plain clothes will go to the rendezvous point and keep a watch on the person who would come there to collect money. They will neither confront nor apprehend him but will follow him stealthily and identify the place where he is holed up.

I formed six teams each consisting of one senior police officer and one junior. They were all instructed to go to Mohammad Ali Road and keep a vigil around the Shalimar Hotel. Their instructions were clear, they were supposed to follow the person who would come to collect the money.

The teams reached the spot around 9.30 pm and waited at various strategic locations to ensure that they had a clear view of the hotel. At around 10 pm, one person came there and was met at the entrance by a man clothed in blue jeans and a striped shirt.

After spending a few moments inside the hotel, both came out, the person wearing blue jeans hailed a taxi and left in the direction of South Mumbai. Instructions to the officers were clear they had to follow the person who took the money. They waited for the person who was now carrying the money. After a few moments, he also hailed a taxi and left. Immediately the officers started shadowing him in private cars maintaining a safe distance to ensure that they did not raise any suspicion or alarm.

The taxi reached Mumbai Central railway station, where the passenger alighted and walked into the railway station. The officers also swiftly followed him inside the railway station. The person went to platform number one and waited for the local train.

Unknown to him, he had at least a dozen shadows following him. Few minutes later the local train arrived, and the person boarded the train. The officers also boarded the same train, while some entered the same compartment as the man, while others got into adjacent compartments.

After an uneventful journey, the train reached Jogeshwari, where the person alighted and walked out of the station. He got into an autorickshaw; our officers started tailing him in other autorickshaws.

When the autorickshaw reached the Basheerbagh area in Jogeshwari (West), it stopped, and the person got off. He paid the rickshaw driver and started walking into the slums. This is where it got tricky for the officers. Basheerbagh slums in Jogeshwari are among the most densely populated slums of Mumbai. Any person who is not a local, can easily be identified and looked upon in suspicion.

The challenge before the police officers was to follow this person without raising any suspicion. Using all their experience and skill, the officers started following the person. After walking for a few minutes and going through several criss-crossing bylanes the person reached a small chawl and knocked on one of the doors. An unknown person opened the door, and the person entered the room which was then bolted behind him…

A protocol was immediately set in place, a round-the-clock vigil was set up to keep a close watch on the place. Crime branch officers dressed in civil and local clothes took over strategic locations around the room to keep a close watch on activities in and around the room. For two agonising days, the officers maintained a strict vigil without raising any suspicion.

Green signal, raid begins

As soon as the green signal was given, I rushed to the spot and oversaw the operation, wherein, a team of highly trained commandos of Mumbai Police and senior officials of Mumbai crime branch stormed into the room at Basheerbagh.

The raid was conducted with such precision that the terrorists did not get even a moment to react. The entire team swooped down on them like an eagle picking up its prey and in no time the terrorists were over-powered and arrested.

A total of five terrorists were arrested. They were identified as: Rafiq Mohammad (aged 34), Abdul Latif Adani Patel (aged 34), Mustaq Ahmed Azami (aged 45), Mohammad Asif alias Babalu (aged 25), Gopal Singh Bahadur Mann (aged 38).

To our utter shock, a huge cache of arms and ammunitions including two AK-56 assault rifles, five hand grenades, Anti-Tank TNT rocket launchers, shells and three detonators and explosives, six pistols, huge stock of ammunitions and Rs 1,72,000 in cash were recovered from the room. It was as if the terrorists had planned to conduct a major terror attack in Mumbai.

Interestingly, a map of Matoshree was also recovered from the room. Matoshree was the residence of Late Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray. It continues to be Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray’s residence even today.

Simultaneous raids were also conducted at two other places, in Jogeshwari and Malad. In one of the raids, a flat rented by a Nepali couple was raided and live hand grenades, 2-3 Glock pistols and USD 10,000 in cash were recovered. With the recovery of American currency, it was quite clear that this was an international conspiracy.

The terrorists were arrested and upon interrogation confessed to the entire hijacking and how they were part of it. The person who had gone to accept the money and who also was the caller was identified as Abdul Patel, a local Mumbai person. He was the main conspirator in Mumbai who was leading the team.

Mohammad Asif alias Babalu and Rafiq Mohammad were found to be Pakistani nationals. Gopal Singh Mann was a Nepalese national while the others were terrorists belonging to the ‘Harkat-ul-Ansoor’ terror group based in Kashmir.

Their interrogation also revealed that there were three other Pakistani nationals staying with them in the same room in Jogeshwari. These three had gone out during the raid and were not arrested.

The Mumbai police immediately went on the highest alert and started combing operations in Jogeshwari and Malad areas to nab the three Pakistani terrorists. However, they fled and could not be arrested.

During sustained interrogation of Abdul Latif Patel, it was revealed that their entire team, including the hijackers, had been holed up in Mumbai since July 1999 and were preparing for the hijack.

The hijackers were identified as: Ibrahim Athar from Bahawalpur, Pakistan; Shahid Akhtar from Karachi, Pakistan; Sunny Ahmed Qazi from Karachi, Pakistan; Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim from Karachi, Pakistan; Shakir from Sindh, Pakistan.

Finding the real names and identities of the hijackers, who were in Kandahar, Afghanistan was a major breakthrough. Till then, the hijackers were unknown to the world and had hidden their identities and faces by wearing monkey caps inside the hijacked airplane… It was the Mumbai Police who were the first to reveal the true identities and real names of the hijackers to the world.

Karkare, who was giving a minute-to-minute update of all the developments in Mumbai to his superiors in Delhi, instantly relayed the names and identities of the hijackers to his bosses, who in turn briefed the then Deputy Prime Minister of India, L K Advani. After this information was passed on, the Government of India and the world came to know about the true identities of the hijackers.

Further investigations and interrogations revealed that the hijackers had come to Mumbai to do the planning and reconnaissance of airports which would suit their hijacking plan. In Mumbai, they had rented a flat in Vaishali Nagar in Jogeshwari (West) and were staying there. During their stay, they had joined a computer class to learn some basic skills. They also managed to get fake Indian passports by paying huge bribes. In fact, the main operative Abdul Patel had managed to procure two passports using his same photo on two consecutive days by bribing officials in the passport office in Mumbai.

The terrorists got in touch with the Seven Spice Travel Agency situated in central for their fake passports and a separate case was registered against the concerned. The investigation did reveal the weakness in the police verification system and the involvement of the travel agencies and the Passport office.

The five hijackers then continued staying in Nepal and they eventually put their plan in operation on December 24, 1999.

After the exchange of the three terrorists from J&K jail, as per the directive from the Government of India, the Mumbai Police then handed them over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who took them to Amritsar where the case of hijacking was registered by CBI which later ended in conviction. It was one of the most high-profile cases ever solved and detected by the Mumbai Police.

(* IPS officer Hemant Karkare was killed during the terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, when he was posted as chief of Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad).

D Sivanandhan is a retired Director General of Police (DGP), Maharashtra, former Police Commissioner of Mumbai & ex-chief of Mumbai Crime Branch. He is also an award-winning author. This article is an edited excerpt from his upcoming book, ‘Brahmastra’.