Chapter 1: Buried and Breathing

Prologue:

It was the late afternoon of 15 th June 2014. The sun was falling asleep behind the blue mountains,
surrounding the barren desert of the Northern Iraq in the outskirts of the city of Mosul. The
mountains were standing tall with Iraqi pride despite of the fact that Iraqi 2nd Division Military unit
had easily melted under the ISIS siege and left the Mosul in the bloody hands of the spurious
Caliphate just 3 days ago. The desert is silently spanned till its horizon with an eerie prognostic of
violence.

Everything remained silent for a while and then through the blowing dust at the endless horizon a
dump truck was seen, followed by a black SUV. They came closer and stopped in the middle of the
desert. A handful of masked and armed ISIS militants came out of the truck’s cabin and marched to
its rear section to open the carriage area. The dump truck was carrying 40 Indian labours who were
working at the construction site of the University Lake Campus in Mosul. The militants forced the
labours to come down and stand in a que. Their hands and eyes were tied with black robes. Their
fingertips were trembling in fear and their lips were begging for mercy.

The labours were asked to kneel down, while their faces were towards the mountains of the west. A
black masked commander appeared out of the SUV and moved near the aligned labours. The other
militants joined him, and they discussed something in Pashto while the labours waited on their
knees, for their fate to be decided. The commander signalled something towards the SUV and two
little boys, merely in the age of 10-12 years came out of the car and moved towards the commander.
The militants handed an AK-47 assault rifle to each of the two and made them stand behind the
labours. The commanders stood between the two boys and raised his voice as the barring desert
was the stage of his ghastly performance.

“We are coming for every infidel around the world, Inshah-allah.” The commander announced. The
boys and the other militants repeated.

“This is just a token. The world will see the power of the caliphate.” Everyone repeated again.

One of the two young boys shouted at once, “Takbir”, which resonated with the repetition of “Allah-
u-Akbar” by the others. The boys pointed their guns towards the kneeling labours and the
commanders helped them to open the lock of the rifle. With the cricking sound of the lock the
whimpering of the labours turned into a loud cry which vaulted across the desert. They pleaded and
begged for their life till the last moment before the triggers were pulled. They were shot cold
bloodedly at the point-blank range and the commander returned with his platoon while leaving the
pile of bloodied bodies at their fate to rot or decompose or eaten away in the numbing cold of the
desert.

The bodies remained like that for hours. The desert sand was soaking red with the drippling blood
and the bodies were mounted one above another like the fillets of meat before a burning oven,
waiting for their fate to be grilled. There was an eerie silence all around the place and the air of the
desert was smelling death and that is when, a pair of fear-stricken eyes came out of the pile to see
around.

Story:

Office of the Indian Embassy of Al Mansour Area in Baghdad was busy in its mundane official duties
on the morning of 20 th June 2014. Despite of the growing tensions in the Northern Iraq and ongoing
war between the Iraqi armed forces and ISIS, Indian Embassy was stable and mostly monitoring the
conflict and sending the information back to the officials of MEA in India.

Consular of the Indian Embassy, Murad Khan was enjoying his fresh brewed morning coffee and
donut and running through the pages of Journal Iraq when the intercom in his office starts ringing.
His PA picked the phone and received the message from the Iraqi checkpoint of Erbil. He hurried
through the portico of the giant embassy building to pass the message over to Murad.

“Iraqi army is having an injured Indian worker without any passport in their camp near the Erbil
checkpoint.” PA blatantly threw the message at the relaxing Murad. The Indian labour crisis in Iraq
and the other parts of the middle east was nothing new to him. Murad was in a habit of getting
thousands of phone calls from the forced labours working in the state under different legal and
illegal construction camps daily. Murad asked his PA to go through the normal procedure of
identification. The Iraqi army had already sent the photograph and the detailed description as
shared by that labour. Murad took the piece of paper and looked into the photograph of a young
Indian man waiting with the panic-stricken eyes to be rescued. He looked into the piece of paper and
found his name as Harjit Masih, a descendant of the Kala-Afgana village of Punjab.

“What is the story?” Murad asked his PA.

“Iraqi army is not ready to share anything till the identification.” The PA replied.

Murad put his coffee down and looked at the photograph one more time. “Ask to identify this man
in Punjab and send two officers to Erbil to bring him back.”

Two Indian officers were immediately deported on the journey to Erbil which was around 400 km
away from the capital. PA scanned and faxed all the documents to the MEA, PMO Office, India for
the verification. The journey to rescue Harjit Masih was immediately executed.

Before the officer could reach Erbil, MEA had confirmed the descendancy of Harjit from a poor
farmer family in Punjab. He left India as a civil labour to work in the football stadium construction
sites of Qatar for the first time in 2010 and came back after 2 years in 2012 and then again left home
in 2013. He had also been involved in the petty theft cases in his early days as per the records of the
local police station in Punjab.

Two officers reached Erbil the early next morning to find Harjit along with 40 Bangladeshi workers,
thrusted inside the detention camp of Iraqi army. Harjit had a bullet grazing injury at his left thigh
muscle. Although he was treated well by the force, he was looking exhausted. Harjit, when got to
know about the Indian officers in the camp, came running to them, pleading to take him out of this
hell.
The Indian officers passed on the confirmation of Harjit being an Indian to the Iraqi officers and
started their journey back to Baghdad. On the way back the officers asked the same questions to
Harjit repeatedly. He comfortably kept on answering everything. The officers were repeating the
questions in every fifteen minutes to find out any discrepancy among any versions of Harjit’s tale.
They found none. He was absolutely clear of what, when and where had happened to him.

They reached the Indian Embassy of Baghdad where Harjit was kept in an interrogation room after
his first medical. Murad came in the room and greeted Harjit with a smile to which Harjit never
replied the gesture. He was looking very confused and was requesting every diligent man he was
crossing across in the embassy to send him back home. Murad took a recorder out of his pocket and
placed it beside his notebook on the table. This was going to be the first formal interrogation of
Harjit Masih. Murad switched on the recorder and started asking the set of questions while taking
his own notes in that old grumpy notebook.

“What is your name and where are you from?” Murad asked.

“I have told this at least 20 times to 20 different officers of this place.” Harjit was looking irritated.

“This is one last time you have to say this, we need to document everything you say. Did you
understand?” Harjit nodded in positive and moved in his chair to make himself comfortable.

He started with his answers, “I am Harjit Masih from Kala Afgana village of Punjab. I came to Iraq
through Saudi to work in the construction site of University Like Campus from where we were
abducted on the night of 11 th June by the ISIS fighters. We were 80 men together. 40 were Indian
and the other 40 were Bangladeshis. We were kept in the basement of a shopping mall for four days.
And in the night of 15 th of June, they separated all the Indian labours from the Bangladeshi labours
and took us to the desert and shot everyone of us. They killed all of my friends.” Harjit eyes were
moist.

“How come you managed to escape?” Murad kept on shooting his questions.

“I acted dead and when they all left, I ran to the highway where I got a man who dropped me to a
nearby ISIS camp again. For a whole night, these another group of ISIS fighter kept on asking me who
I am, I just fooled them by saying that I didn’t understand any of their words as I am a Muslim from
Bangladesh. And after every of my line I repeated Allah-u-Akbar. They dropped me back at University
Lake Campus the next morning from where I escaped along with my other Bangladeshi friends by
taking the name of Ali.” Harjit Masih managed to say the details one more time, thinking of it to be
the one last time. But he could never imagine at that point, that this story had already stuck to his
marrows for the lifetime.

Murad came out of the interrogation room and was looking worried as he didn’t get any
discrepancy in the versions of Harjit’s story. He was cynical of the fact that Harjit was explaining
everything as he had practiced this session of interrogation a lot. He was confident and was paying
attention to every minute details that he had to say. According to Murad, nobody could remain so
logical and confident after going through something so horrific recently. But Murad’s seniors
dismissed every of his confusions and asked Murad to make arrangements of sending Harjit back
to India.
Next morning, two Indian officials along with Harjit boarded the flight of Turkish Airlines to New
Delhi. MEA had ordered the officials to take Harjit directly to the RAW HQ and after a general
procedure of their interrogation, Harjit would be dropped at his own village by the evening. But
something consequentially changed during Harjit’s journey back home. Some Indian news
correspondent from the front lines of Iraqi-ISIS battlefield had aired the news that 40 Indian
workers were abducted by ISIS from Mosul and 39 of them are shot dead, while the one was now
under the observation of MEA officials and would be soon taken back to India. As the news
touched the towers of Delhi, the phone at MEA was at continuous buzz.

MEA decided to take Harjit to the RAW headquarter first and from there he would be flown to a
safe house in Bangalore and would not be allowed to speak to any journalist. MEA wanted to get
an official confirmation of the 39 dead workers before putting it out to the media. Harjit had no
idea that he was freed from the clutch of ISIS to get into the clutch of RAW. His journey of plight
and uncertainty had already started.

MEA ordered Murad Khan to confirm the fate of other 39 labours. It was a tough task. Whatever
Harjit was saying had happened somewhere near Mosul, in the ISIS territory, where it would be
impossible for an Indian officer to go and interrogate. Murad had to search for any Indian or Iraqi
agent who would do this job for him in lieu of money. Murad went through the list of his dormant
agents and found the name of Zubeida, an Indian informant on Iraqi soil for past six years, leaving
under the garb of her own NGO. Murad left the desk in search of her.

Upon reaching to the RAW HQ in Delhi, Harjit was interrogated again and then was taken to a safe
house in Bengaluru where he was kept under the custody of Manjunath Iyer, a Malayali RAW
official. Manjunath was strictly instructed by the ministry to not to allow Harjit to speak to media.
Harjit was kept under house arrest with every comfort possible. RAW made it look like they were
trying to keep Masih safe from any external threat.

As the news of the dead Indian labours came to India, it reached the houses of all the 39 deceased.
The confused and panic-stricken family members were chased by the reporters for the story. The
news channels started flashing many unconfirmed stories of which the most important one was
shared by the brother of Manjit, one of the 39 deceased labours. He alleged the Indian
Government for not taking appropriate measures to extradite the labours from the captivity of
ISIS. He informed, “I got a call from Manjit, my brother, on 11 th of June, before they were
abducted. He told me that Al-Qaida or ISIS or any militancy organisation had surrounded the
Mosul and a war was going on. I immediately called the travel agent in Iraq and he got in touch
with the embassy. But nothing happened. Then they were abducted. My brother called the
embassy officials for 3 days and pleaded for help. But no help came to him and then he stopped
calling. Now this news of him being dead. Indian Government needs to give us a determined
answer. We are confused and worried.”

The pressure was mounting on the Government and they had to quickly response. MEA asked
Murad Khan for answer.

“It is not that easy to go inside the ISIS territory and take out information. It will take time.”
Murad replied. The anxious Indian Government decides to face the media and the Minister of
External Affairs appeared for a press conference with the news that the labours were not dead
yet. They are alive and with ISIS.

“We have made connections with our sources in Iraq who has confirmed that they are alive. We
are trying to get in touch with them. We will go into a negotiation with ISIS if required to take our
men back.” Minister went on saving the Government’s back. “And Harjit Masih is back to India,
and we are keeping him safe, away from any threat. He is the only source who can get us to the
other 39 labours.”

Harjit was sitting in his safe house and watching this nonsense on the national television.
Manjunath was sitting by him and having his evening peg of whiskey. Harjit turned to Manjunath,
“Why is she lying? I have seen them dying in front of me.”

“And you are not going to say this to the media.” Manjunath replied. Harjit was looking confused.
For an illiterate man like him, all the politics was utmost confusing. Harjit had only one request to
the Government to let him go back to his own village, to meet his family, to meet his friends. But
he was not going to be allowed soon.

Murad got in touch with Zubeida in Baghdad and they met in a café in a congested market area.
Murad knew, they had to create a base for Zubeida to go to the ISIS controlled territories. They
monitored every possible ground before they finalised that Zubeida’s NGO would get to the war
affected areas of Northern Iraq under the garb of collecting decomposing and left out bodies of
the locals and ISIS fighters. Though these areas were cleared by Iraqi forces, still they believed that
ISIS sympathisers and informers to be there. Zubeida had to search for on of these men who could
take her inside the territory. “Whatever you have to do, you have to do it very fast.” Murad asked
Zubeida. Zubeida nodded and left the café.

On the 4th day of staying in the safe house, Harjit was allowed to speak to his family. The
conversation was monitored over the phone. Everyone back in Harjit’s village was happy and
contended to hear from him after so many days of anxiousness. They were relieved. But Harjit was
not. He wanted to go out and say to everyone that the Government was lying. He had seen his
brothers dying himself. This wish of Harjit didn’t take long to see the light of hope. Sunaina, a
journalist from Bengaluru got to know about Harjit’s location and tried to get in touch with him.

Harjit, though was under house arrest, was allowed to move around the safe house and going to
market if necessary, under close observation. Harjit knew that he had been continuously
shadowed. He had gradually started dealing with it as he believed Manjunath’s words, “You will
be free once we get any news about your colleagues.” It wouldn’t be long when he could see the
muddy roads and paddy fields of his own village again. One evening, while he was taking a stroll
round the market in search of cashew nut, he came across Sunaina, who slipped a chit of paper
into Harjit’s pocket. Harjit came back and opened the chit to find the message, ‘Masih, we need to
talk.’
Chapter 2: Daesh’s Backyard

When the fight was going on between Iraqi forces and ISIS fighters in the outskirts of Mosul, the ISIS
camps deep inside the city were relaxed and engaged into their daily chores. Two American
journalists were also in town to make a documentary on the daily life inside the caliphate. The
journalists, Steve and Rashford, were joined by Abu Obida, the patrol leader of ISIS for the city of
Mosul. He agreed to take them on a tour around the town to show the imposition of ISIS rules. The
journalists set their camera and were hurrying to move out when they were stopped by Abu Obida
and asked them to relax over a cup of tea and breakfast, while he would take time to get ready. “I
am facing camera after many days. I should look good.” He smiled and went inside.

Steve and Rashford were strolling through the camps when they found innumerable cigarette butts,
scattered here and there even though ISIS had already banned the use of tobacco and alcohol in the
Caliphate. When they went ahead and asked a fighter about it, the fighter made them sit beside him
and showed them a video where they are playing with the chopped head of a fellow American
journalist. Stave and Rashford decided to refrain themselves from any further question.

Abu Obida came out of his camp in set of new clothes. He hung his rifle around his shoulder and got
into his car with the journalists. “Tell me whenever I don’t look good in the camera. And keep on
staying on my left profile. Right one is fatter.” Abu Obida said and started the engine.

Steve and Rashford were witnessing a whole new world in the backyard of Daesh. Abu was showing
them that how the normal life of the city is getting destroyed because of the Iraqi drone attacks.
There were destroyed buildings all around the place. This must had been a beautiful city before the
war. Abu was driving around and stopping people from doing certain things which was against the
Sharia Law. Both the journalists were wondered to find him extremely polite to the people. He
stopped his car near a young couple in the Ghul Market area. Abu called the husband and greeted
him first and then politely asked him, “Is that your wife?” The husband nodded in affirmation. “Ask
her to cover herself properly. She is your wife. Don’t put her on display.” He said everything with a
beautiful smile on his face and as he started the car again, he turned to journalists proudly and said,
“This is how you administrate your people. You should go and tell your beautiful experience to your
administrators in America. I can chop my head and pack it as a gift for you, if you find any drunkard
in the street. As it is not very hard to follow the rules of the Prophet. You just need to make it simple
for the people to understand.”

Steve and Rashford after their tour with Abu Obida, bid him goodbye and came out of Mosul. They
headed towards the nearest safe town of Erbil. They drove for around 6 hours and reached Erbil in
the evening. They booked a hotel and settled down to see the rushes when Rashford’s cell phone
buzzed. Rashford picked up the call and found Zubeida on the other side of it. He confirmed her to
meet the next morning.

Masih, during his stay in the safe house, always took an evening stroll in the nearest marketplace. It
was the 6th day of his stay when he came down to the market, according to his normal routine, but
this time with a purpose. He walked down the busy streets for a few moments and then went near a
roadside vendor and asked, “Where will I get the best Kebabs of the area?” The vendor showed him
a restaurant at the end of the street. Masih walked down the street quietly again, pretending
everything to be normal. He got inside the restaurant and took a table at the far corner. He ordered
for a plate of chicken lababdaar and waited. A man in white tee shirt came inside the restaurant and
sit on a table across Harjit. It was his shadow. Harjit, by now, had known the faces that are following
him.

He sat quietly for few minutes after which his order arrived. He ate with patience. The shadow
ordered for a cup of coffee. They exchanged few glances but Masih’s expression was normal. He
finished his food and went to the washroom. As he tried to open it, it was locked from inside. He
waited again. After few seconds a man came out of it, smiled at Masih and walked pass him. Masih
went inside the washroom, locked the door and turned to find Sunaina waiting for him with a smile.

Sunaina took her phone out and started recording. Masih put the toilet seat down, sat on it and
started saying, “My name is Harjit Masih. I am from Kala Afgana village of Punjab. I am the lone
survivor of the Indian labour massacre incident in Iraq. The Government is lying. They can’t have any
proof of my brothers to be alive. I have seen my brothers dying with my own eyes. They had been
shot point blank. I am now under house arrest of RAW and they are not even allowing me to meet
my family or having a phone. I am here at Kothari restaurant’s washroom and recording this video
with the help of a close friend of mine. I am doing this because I feel my country should know the
truth and my family and the family of my deceased brothers should get their proper dues. My
brothers will not come back, but the lies will affect the peace of their soul.” Masih broke down into
tears

He came out of the washroom and found his shadow to be sitting at the same place. He paid for the
food and left the restaurant silently. The next morning every news channel was running the video of
Harjit Masih. Manjunath got a call from the MEA for clarification, which he didn’t have. The families
of the other 39 deceased labours were angry at Government’s idea of hiding the affair. As, most of
the deceased labours were from Punjab, their families formed a community with the help of a local
opposition leader and decided to go to New Delhi to ask answers from the Government.

Minister of External Affairs was under extreme pressure. She planned with her own cabinets and
organised a press conference where she blamed Harjit Masih to be a liar. “Masih is doing this for
publicity. He wants to gain media attention and public sympathy to show how brave he is. But he is
not brave. Our sources have found that he was not even at the site of the massacre, if there was any.
He mixed himself up with the Bangladeshi labours and took the name of Ali to run away. We don’t
blame him though. He was scared. But I plead him to not to spread unnecessary lies. Government
agencies are capable enough to investigate this. We will be back with answers. And yes, Harjit is
under our observation but not under arrest. An arrested person can’t go and have Kebabs from the
market. We are keeping him safe.” Minister addressed the press.

Though the allegation never stopped the opposition party and the media from asking question and
creating pressure for the release of Harjit Masih, few families of the deceased didn’t take it well.
They believed that Harjit had betrayed his own brothers. And Manjit Singh’s family was the first to
accuse Harjit. Manjit was a childhood friend of Harjit, whom Harjit had taken along with him to Iraq
in 2013. Harjit’s father claimed, “Harjit was like my own son. But he betrayed his own brothers. Who
can say if he has sacrificed other’s lives to save his own?”

While all these unnecessary politics were being played around Masih in India, Rashford and Steve
came to meet Zubeida, secretly. Zubeida was in Erbil with a team of 8 young men who were helping
her to collect decomposed bodies from the rubbles of the war trodden weary city of Erbil. The
journalists came to meet her under the veil of shooting her work and putting into their
documentary. They kept on walking along with Zubeida and her team amidst the debris in search of
the bodies, interviewing the locals and affected individuals. They walked around the place for a long
time and after collecting almost 20 dead bodies, Zubeida asked his boys to go with the bodies to the
town for post-mortem. As the boys left, she took the journalists inside a weary building.

Steve informed Zubeida that they had no news of shootout of Indian labours around the city of
Mosul. But a shootout of this kind was very common in that part of the world. There were piles of
dead bodies in the deserts of which it won’t be possible to find the exact ones without coming under
ISIS observation. Steve switched his laptop on and showed her the video of Abu Obida. There was
one more person presents in the car who was accompanying Abu Obida during their visit. He was
Abu Meher. He was the second-hand command of Abu Obida. “I was discussing casually about my
father’s kidney problems when he said about his brother in Erbil, into the business of organ
trafficking. He joked that I must take a kidney from him. He will give me an American one.” Steve
said.

“What does it suggest?” Zubeida was curious.

“Look, as per our information the finances of ISIS are shrinking every day. They may have aligned
themselves into the business of Human trafficking. There is a possibility. And after the death of these
labours they may have tried to sell their organs too. For this they may have taken his help.
Everything is on probability and nothing definitive.” Steve suggested.

“Can you tell me the name of this Meher’s brother?” Zubeida asked.

“I am afraid, I don’t know that.” Steve said. Zubeida looked at Steve for some moment and then said,
“Cool, then. Send me the link of your documentary once it’s done.” Zubeida blinked casually and
moved out of the place. She had now to find Abu Meher’s brother without a name and without a
face. And she again knew that she couldn’t ask for it directly.

Under immense pressure of the media, opposition and Harjit’s family, RAW decided to change
Harjit’s location from Bengaluru to Uttarakhand. He was promised of some job and transported to a
remote village in the hills. Harjit security was even more tightened and this time he was threatened
not to share his location to his family. He was allowed to do a phone call everyday to his family but
that didn’t help the Government either and at the end they had to allow Masih to go back home.

Masih was dropped to a nearby railway station from where he boarded a bus and headed towards
his village. Kala Afgana was all set to welcome their son back home. The entire village was at the bus
stand to receive Masih, except the family of Manjit. The villagers gathered at Harjit’s place and
partied long. When the celebration was over, Masih moved out of his house discreetly that night and
met Heer, Manjit’s sister. Heer and Masih were in love since their adolescent days and Heer was the
one to ask Masih to take his unemployed and presumptuous brother along with him to Iraq.

Masih met Heer near the only river of their village. Heer got into the arms of Masih and profusely
cried. She was having a mixture of emotions ranging between contentment and solicitude. She was
worried about her brother. Masih hold her tightly and whispered in her ears to lose all hope of his
brother to be alive. He had seen Manjit getting shot at the back of his head.

“But the minister is saying that they have got to connect with the labours, and they are alive.” Heer
was looking at Masih with the uneasiness in her eyes.

“I don’t know why they are lying, but I won’t lie to you. I will be the happiest person if proved to be a
liar. My brother will come back home.” Tears rolled down Heer’s eyes. Masih kissed Heer after ages.

Zubeida in Iraq had started her hunt for the brother of Abu Meher but she was not getting any direct
lead. She consulted the equation with Murad who advised her to spread a message along the
brokers of organ trafficking curtail that you have collected many organs from your operation.
Zubeida did it and waited for the call from the right person. She got the call for her first meeting in
less than 24 hours but that was not the person that she was looking for. She denied the transaction
on the ground of finances and moved ahead with her search. “There won’t be many organ traffickers
in the city. Raise your price so that the middlemen must be eliminated right away.” Murad advised.

Zubeida kept on trying and got success on the second day when she was called and asked to meet
someone at a café in the heart of the town. She tied her lays and moved ahead.

Zubeida went to Café Barbera and waited for two long hours, but nobody arrived. As and when she
decided to go, she could feel that she was shadowed. She kept on walking down the street with
confidence. The man followed her till the end of the market area and as Zubeida was about to board
a taxi, a tall sturdy man called her from behind, “Zubeida-Al-Husseini?”

She turned around to find a man smiling at her from a distance. “Are you Zubeida-Al-Husseini?” He
asked again. Zubeida nodded in affirmation. “As-salamu alaykum.” He came closer with that
constant smile on her face. “My name is Abu Zakir. Sorry for keep you waiting at Barbera Café.
Please come along with me. We will talk in private.” He said and started walking. Zubeida followed
him uncomfortably.

They crossed two narrow lanes, then a major street and went inside a big house. Zakir asked him to
sit on a chair and went inside. Zubeida stared around the house to find it to be the house more of an
artist than of an organ trafficker. Zakir came out with another tall man along with him and it didn’t
take much time for Zubeida to recognise him as Abu-Meher from the video. She was contended to
be at the right place.

Both the brothers sat across her. Zubeida was trying to be confident. She had never got so close to
any ISIS fighter before. Abu Zakir opened his notebook and came to the point right away.

“How many and what organs do you have? And how are you quoting them?” Zakir asked.

Zubeida looked at Zakir for a moment and smiled, “What organs and how many do you want?”

Zakir and Meher looked at each other in confusion. They had now got straightened on their chairs.
“We get continuous demand. You tell me.”

“What is your market?” Zubeida asked again.

“That is not your concern. You tell us what you have, quote your price and you are free to go.”
Zakir’s voice was rigid.

“Free to go? I can walk down in the middle of the conversation even.” Zubeida was getting anxious
from inside, but her face bared no marks of it. She leaned forward a beat and looked directly into
the eyes of Abu Zakir, “I am not here to sell one kidney or one blemished liver. I am here to deal in
bulk.”

“Where you get all these from?” Abu Meher asked.

“That is not your concern. I quote a kidney for 20,000 USD, heart for 35,000 USD, liver for 25,000
USD.” Zubeida quoted.

“Is it negotiable?” Abu Zakir asked.

“Absolutely not.” Zubeida denied.

“How many do you have?” Zakir was getting anxious.

“More than 150 in total of everything.” Zakir was looking at Zubeida with horrified eyes.

“Look, I don’t want to keep you guessing. I have my own NGO and I collect dead bodies from the war
trodden areas of Iraq. I collect hundreds of dead bodies every month. That is my source.” Zakir was
listening to Zubeida attentively. Zubeida turned to Abu Meher, “I can ask you to do something if you
are not already doing it. I know how the organ trafficking works here. Poor people come to you and
sell their organs for money. Though it happens often but not regular.” She turned to Abu Meher and
said, “I know who you are. I have seen you in American videos. I am going to give you a business
deal. You get me the way to go inside the ISIS occupied areas. Me and my men will collect the dead
bodies take the organs, do the tests and give it back for sell. Whatever the sell value will be, you
keep 70 percent and rest I will keep and outside the ISIS areas the profit percentage will be 50-50.”
Abu Meher couldn’t believe his ears. Zubeida had confidently extended her hand in confirmation of
the deal.

Zakir looked at Abu Meher. Abu Meher thought for some time, “I need to get in touch with someone
for this. We will get back to you. Where do you stay?”

“Not important. Get me back till Sunday or else I will have to go in search of new buyers. Sunday, 2’o
clock. Café Barbera. And don’t keep me waiting then. Khuda Hafiz.” Zubeida took her bag and moved
near the door and turned back to Abu Meher. “What is your age, sir?”

“40. Why?” Abu Meher replied.

“You have beautiful eyes. It must cost more than 15,000 USD.” Zakir smiled while Meher became
uncomfortable. Zubeida moved out of the room in confidence and took a gasp of breath when she
was out on the street again.

The family of the deceased labours reached Delhi and started demonstrating at the India Gate in ask
for the answer. Manjit’s family also joined them. Masih decided to go and join the movement.
Masih’s parents were not confident to let their son go again into something unknown. But Masih
was adamant. He boarded a train from Patiala and reached Delhi on the eve of the 2 nd day of protest.

The whole movement was already getting extensive media attention and after Harjit Masih was
there, it became the sensation for 24 hours for any news channel. Every time Masih was
interviewed, he repeated his words that nobody was alive, and the Government was lying. MEA was
asking questions to Murad and Murad was looking at Zubeida for some answer.

Zubeida, two days after her meeting with Meher and Zakir, got a call from Mosul to arrive with her
men. Her location was confirmed as she had to report Abu Meher directly. Zubeida passed this
information to Murad. It was the first time in the history Indian Intelligence that a female agent is
going inside the territory of ISIS. Murad was anxious but had not left with much options either.
Zubeida spread the map of Northern Iraq and found it to be an area covering more than hundred
and fifty thousand square kilometres. She had to narrow down the probable places on the basis of
Harjit Masih’s description. He asked Murad to send her the audio clips of interrogation. Zubeida kept
on playing the clips on loop and jotted down four probable locations of the massacre.

In Delhi, amidst the protest, many of the families never wanted Harjit Masih to be there. But he kept
on waiting there in support of his brothers and moreover for Heer. Under the mounting pressure,
Minister of External Affairs called for a meeting of her cabinets and said, “I can’t confirm the deaths
without any proper evidence. How can we trust this man? We don’t even have the verification of his
story as well. Let’s go to the public and confess that we have made contacts with the labours and the
negotiation is on with the ISIS. We can announce some money for the deceased families.”

As decided, the Minister went to the press and uttered another lie. Although it worked this time.
Half of the families believed the ministers and preferred to wait. To gain more confidence of the
family members, Minister decided to meet few of them as well. The other families along with Manjit
preferred to go on with the protest but its dimension had been weakened.

That night, when the capital was sleeping, Harjit Masih went out of his hotel room, marched till an
open area and took a Nokia 1500 model out of his phone and called an unknown number and
waited.

“As-salamu alaykum, sir. I am in Delhi right now with the protestors. What are the orders?” Masih
asked in a Masih tone.

“Collect 20 SIM cards from different parts of Delhi and wait for Imtiaz. He will reach Delhi in 2 days
and will get in touch with you. You don’t shift your base.” Abu Obida replied from Iraq.

“Inshah-Allah.” Masih disconnected the phone and changed the SIM card again.

Chapter 3: Predators of Mumbai

Flashback:

Imtiaz’s story start on the year 2012. He was a mechanical engineering student from Mumbai. He
became the member of Student’s Islamic Organisation and during one of his tours with its members
to Cheraman Juma Mosque of Kerala he became extremely religious. The religiousness soon
changed to orthodoxy. A brilliant student like Imtiaz who had an excellent academic record, soon left
everything and without much knowledge of his family, he devoted himself in reading religious books
like Sirat-un-Nabi, Salah Ad-Din Al-Ayyubi and many more. The orthodoxy suddenly changed to
radicalism when he heard about ISIS for the first time in 2013. He started reading more about the
militant organisation. He made many social networking acquaintances over the world to gather
more information. Everything about the ISIS started interesting him.

Through Facebook, he met Adeb, a shoe shop owner of his age from the Crawford Market area of
Mumbai. They decided to meet in person. Imtiaz and Adeb met for the first time in 2013 in a small
café of South Bombay where Adeb taken a middle-aged man named Farooq along with him. Though
Imtiaz had voraciously read everything about ISIS and their Jihad, Farooq was the man who
influenced them to join the army.

“In Hadith, a companion of Prophet once asked him, where to go for Hijarat, that means where to
migrate? Prophet asked him to go to Syria.” Farooq said that with pride in his glittering eyes. In few
days of his companionship, Imtiaz requested his help to go to Syria.

Farooq told Imtiaz and Adeb that the best possible way to get to Syria was through Saudi, but that
would be costly. They went to a local travelling agency to confirm the price where they were quoted
to pay around a lakh rupee for their visit. It was way more costly than they could bear. So, they
started trying the second option through Iraq.
Imtiaz got to know from his acquaintances in SIO that one could travel to Iraq on a Ziyarat, a
religious visa. They paid their money to another local tour and travels agency and booked three
tickets for Iraq. They were to leave in a month’s time. Imtiaz started setting up his contacts through
social networking sites in Baghdad. He got few names and phone numbers and depending upon that,
the wannabe Jihadists started their journey to Iraq.

Present:

Imtiaz arrived at New Delhi railway station and met Masih. Masih took Imtiaz to the ISBT and they
boarded a bus for Candour. All the way from Delhi to Candour Imtiaz repeatedly asked Masih about
his job role of which Masih never replied. They reached Candour and boarded a taxi to go to a small
village in the way of Candour to Mussoorie. A room had already been booked for Imtiaz there. Masih
asked him to freshen up and then he would made him understand his job role over lunch.

They had their lunch in a north Indian cuisine, which was situated down the hill after a walk of 2
kilometre. Imtiaz remained mostly silent while Masih was doing all the talking like a boss. “You and I
are going to accumulate finances from here on. You will keep an account of everything and as soon
as I will get instructions, I will ask you to transport this money to someone in this country. There will
be no one in the middle of us. So, if anybody asks for any information from anywhere, you will
directly report to me. And you will not call your friend Adeb or any one in Syria. You will not talk to
Abu Meher or Abu Obida. Your existence in this country will be a secret. Got my point?”

Imtiaz remained silent and nodded his head in affirmation. Masih ate rest of his lunch just observing
Imtiaz, handed a phone over to him, moved out of the cuisine and boarded a bus for Chandigarh.
Imtiaz was all over alone in Candour, with no idea about the next step. So, now he had to that for
which he was trained the most in the dusty camps of Syria. Keeping patience.

Masih on his way home from Chandigarh, decided to stay in the city for couple of days to find his old
friend Chandel. Chandel and Masih were really close since their teens. Masih knew that Chandel was
working in a bank as a security guard and found him out.

As Masih went into his office, Chandel was busy with his daily chores of hustle bustle into the busy
bank when he turned around to find Masih standing at the door. He didn’t move for an idyllic good
and then he marched straight to Masih with a smiling face and took him outside the building by his
elbow.

Masih and Chandel were meeting after two and half years, and life had changed a lot in the middle
for both of them. Masih went to Qatar and Chandel ironically bagged this job of a security guard in a
bank after being charged for a robbery on the national highway along with Masih, 3 years back. The
connections in India can do wonder.

“When did you come back?” Chandel asked. “And what are you doing here in Chandigarh? You are
looking like a Saheb, aren’t you?” Chandel looked at Masih’s apparels, most of which were provided
by RAW officials during his stay in Bangalore.

“I landed in Chandigarh today. To meet you. Where is Rana and Jazzy?” Masih asked

“Where are you staying?” Chandel ignored his question completely.

“You tell me where to stay. I have just landed.” Masih was looking at thoughtful Chandel before he
spoke, “You wait here. Let me go inside and check for an early leave.” Masih nodded his head and
took a chair to seat while Chandel ran inside for his permissions. He stopped in the half-way through
and turned back to say, “Rana and Jazzy is also here.”

Masih while sitting there, in the middle of a corporate lobby like an alien, was thinking about his
good old days with Chandel, Rana and Jazzy and the beautiful anecdotes of their mirth. They had
always wanted to do something big, together. And then the life had fallen apart when they
attempted a robbery on the national highway, but miserably failed. They were beaten for days in the
Police Station, before Manjit, Masih’s childhood friend from Kala Afghana, came in with the bail-out
notice in hand. That was the last time Masih saw Chandel, Rana and Jazzy before today. Masih had
no idea about their conditions after that, who bailed them out and after how many days, what Rana
and Jazzy are doing, whom of them had got married and many more. All would he ask today when
he would meet them .

Chandel came running out of the bank with his bag on his shoulder and leave approval on his face.
“Where to head now? What do you wanna, do?” Chandel asked Masih.

“I want to meet Rana and Jazzy as early as possible.” Rana said.

“Let’s go then. Let’s go to my place first. I will get freshen up and then I would ask them to come to
our favourite join at the airport road in the evening.” They started walking towards the main exit.
“Do you know what Jazzy is up to?” Masih was looking at him with interested eyes. “He is the DJ
Jazzy in a dance bar now. Putting all his bets on the Nepali pussy’s all day long. I will ask him to take
us there and get you one. Man, they can make you cum with their vignette of moaning.” Masih
smiled. The one thing he had always craved for in Iraq is women. Iraqi women were beautiful, and
he was an immigrant. They both walked past the campus.

Chandel house is a small one room kitchen apartment at the colony area of the city, with dirty roads
with stashes all around it. There was hustling bustling all around the place and every people seemed
to know each other well. Chandel must had smiled back to at least fifteen odd people before he
finally got into his dreary apartment.

As Masih stepped inside for the very first time, he saw the photograph that included all four of them.
He remembered this photograph they had taken on one of Masih’s early visits to Chandigarh. Masih
had always wanted to explore the city and while doing that he found these three buggers, and never
get separated.

Chandel quickly changed into a fresh pair of jeans and shirt and washed his face as neatly as possible
and got ready to go. He dialled a number, “Hello! Jazzyan… Where are you, mate? Guess who is here
standing right in front of me? Oye… Our own Masih. He came back from Qatar. What?” He is trying
to listen to Jazzy carefully and after a while looked at Masih and said, “Were you all over the news
few days back?” Masih smiled and nodded.

Zubeida reached the outskirts of Mosul where she was advised to wait before she and her tea would
be picked up by the ISIS fighters. Zubeida arrived with six young boys who were the probable
medical students enrolled in the Medical College in Baghdad. Zubeida and her boys were dropped in
the middle of an arid desert and were asked to wait. They had been waiting amidst nothing and no
one for long 2 hours and then they could see behind the wall of emerging dust, the caravan full of
militants approaching.

The militants stopped their car and greeted Zubeida courteously. Zubeida had an experience of
being into the hostile enemy land many items, but it was very new for her. These men were not Al-
Qaida or Taliban or Boko Haram or any communist militants of Russia, they were different. They
looked different. Their attitude was something that Zubeida had never encountered before.

“Sabahu Al-khair?” Zubeida asked.

“Inshah-Allah. We have shot down two Iraqi drones today. Pilots are still alive and healthy. You will
get your first consignment today.” One of the militants answered with a contentious smile which
triggered a nerve wrecking fear among Zubeida’s boys.

Zubeida boarded the same caravan and started their journey to the head quarter of ISIS in the
northern Mosul. All they could see was destruction. Bombed out building, legs and hands of dead
bodies hanging out of the rubbles with dried blood stench on them, decomposed body of crucified
Iraqi soldiers on the side of the road, all covered women timidly walking on the roads with their
proud husbands and the set of other ISIS militants patrolling the city on their armoured tanks and
vehicles which they had captured from the Iraqi soldiers in the recent war. Zubeida had never seen
hell in her life, nobody did. It appeared like a hell of them. The humanity had ended long before they
entered Mosul which was once a lively city with all its jostles and bustles.

The caravan entered into a camp and Zubeida could recognise the man standing on the way to greet
them. It was Abu Meher. Zubeida walked up to her and looked at her outfit. She was wearing a blue
pant with a white blouse and a jacket and a scarf was hanging round her shoulder. Meher smiled at
Abida and said, “Allah never permit Muslim women to wear these. These are the diseases that west
has infected us with. But I see your job is to work on the fields, so you need to wear pants, but
please do remember to cover your head all the time.” Zubeida covered her head instantly.

Meher took her directly to Abu Obida’s camp. On the way she found the two Iraqi fighter plane
pilots are tied to wood logs and were being mocked by the militants. They are spitting, throwing
stones and pissing on them. They were half dead with all these embarrassment and hatred, and now
they were least remained with their body to be cut open.

As Zubeida got inside the camp, Abu Obida greeted her and offered her lunch. “My boys are also
hungry. We haven’t eaten anything since last night.” Zubeida said.

“My boys will take care of your boys.” Obida assured and signalled Zubeida to take lunch. “So, what
brought you here?”

“Money!” Zubeida stated blatantly at the face of Obida and poured some beef roast on her plate and
turned to Obida again. “Look, I have to tell you a story to represent me. I am a doctor myself. I
practiced medicine for 3 years. When I was 24, my grandma died and according to her last wish, she
wanted to donate her body. So, my Abba took her body to the hospital and donated them. After few
days he bought a new car.” Zubeida took a bite.

“That’s a sin.” Obida replied.

“We didn’t have money to sustain for a fortnight at that time. Nothing can be sinner than to keep
your family hungry.” Zubeida was confidently looking straight into the eyes of Obida and she could
feel that the old man had already started appreciating her. “This is your family Mr. Obida. These
boys who are playing outside are your family. Mosul is your family and you want to desperately keep
them away from the infidels. But let me tell you one thing very clearly, the infidels out there have
much more money than what you have. The Americans are helping them, Israel is helping them, so
the people like us have decided to help you in this war.”
Obida was impressed with the confidence of this young lady and took her for a walk on the dry
mountains heading west. Zubeida had discussed all her plans with Obida and how she would help
them take these organs to her known market in the west. She sarcastically said, “Now the Americans
will unintentionally pay for their own destruction.”

They returned back to the camp where Meher had lined the fighter pilots and made them ready for
execution. A cage like structure made of steel with some dried clothes and wood beneath it was
made in the middle of the camp and two chairs were kept in front of it as if it was to watch a show.
The two pilots were taken to the cage and were tied with a rope over it and the dried woods were
set on fire. It was a horrific site for Zubeida and her boys to see two men boiling to death and their
screams were resonating the mayhem into this part of the world.

Masih and Chandel met with Rana and Jazzy at their favourite hangout in Chandigarh. Rana tried to
ignore for some reasons which later Chandel tried to solve by garlanding him with his mouthful of
cuss words. Though Rana arrived, he maintained a distance from Masih. They all were swirling
through the wind of their emotions of the old stories of being together.

Before going to Qatar, Masih landed in Chandigarh in search of work. After he bagged a job of a
housekeeper in a local newspaper office, he started searching for a place to leave. That is when, he
found this house where Chandal, Rana and Jazzy were already staying on rent. He started leaving
with them and from where their story started.

They stayed together for more than a year and in this period, all four of them were booked under
law for four times. First was the case where Chandel molested an office goer, in the second case
they had a gang fight with another local gang of redundant guys at a street food joint, third was
when they tried to steal money from a local temple and at the final one they stopped a car on the
Delhi-Chandigarh highway and robbed a newly married couple. Masih’s family never believed their
son, who came for work, had turned into a petty criminal. They forced him to come back and look for
another work. Masih left Chandigarh and never met the other three again.

Chande, Rana and Jazzy stayed in jail for three months without any court hearing or bail. Rana tried
to call Masih in his village but Masih never replied. After getting released, Rana could never get to
term on this, that he never tried to help them. They never left Chandigarh.

Masih was looking for someone who would be desperately needed money and he found out that all
three of them were not earning enough. But Masih had no intention to break a plan as he himself
had no idea of the next step. He just wanted someone whom he could convince to accumulate dirty
money. But, prior to that, Masih needed to grow a definitive bonding with them.

In Iraq, Zubeida and her team got into their job of finding the bodies straight away. Obida helped
Zubeida with few of his men, who would help her and her team with whatever they need. Obida’s
men were basically keeping an eye on her.

Zubeida had few locations as per Masih’s description where she wanted to search first. She had
asked Murad to take help from CIA to get the satellite images of mass graves but from that it was
definitely not easy to locate the exact one. Zubeida knew her ways and she had already collected her
needed data from Rashford and Steve. Rashford and Steve had exactly told her about the mass
murders that happened all around the town after ISIS took over.

Murad had already cleared her doubts, that she couldn’t be rescued from Mosul in case of any
emergencies. Despite of that negative percentage of survival, Zubeida wanted to go in. It was not
just the sheer love for the nation, but to prove her worth to the department who had though
appointed her, but never posted her on field for the fact that she was a woman. She was waiting in
Baghdad for this opportunity for last 6 years. Zubeida started unearthing the tissues from the graves.

Abu Meher came in the camp of Abu Obida that night and told him about the stop of aid from the
Saudi due to American pressure. Abu Meher tried to contact the head of the seven companies in
India who were supplying ISIS with necessary requirements had also turned them down. CIA had
been keeping eyes on all the allies of ISIS and hence, looking at the current financials, it would be
impossible for ISIS to go on with their plans in South East Asia. They had to accumulate more money.

Abu Obida had got a new route of finances and he knew that CIA and MI6 and Mossad would take a
long time to identify this channel as it was famous in every illegal market of Iraq. The channel of
Zubeida and her routes of illegal organ trafficking. Obida called Masih and asked to meet Saqib, one
of the 40 Bangladeshis who claimed to run away from Mosul on 16 th June with Masih.

Saqib was a Bangladeshi and a descendant of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. He was the right
hand of the regular organ trafficker of Bangladesh. But on a collision, he killed his own boss and
when the entire racket was after him, he fled to Qatar for work. There he met Abu Obida and started
working for him in ISIS before he wanted to go back. Abu Obida never hold him back and was
allowed to depart along with the other Bangladeshi workers. But upon reaching his homeland he
suddenly was in lack of money and contacted Abu Obida again for work. The time had come for
Obida to use him as an important factor to raise money.

Masih was ordered to arrange for Imtiaz to move to Bangladesh. There he would meet Saqib and
would work with him. The only way to get to Bangladesh was either from Manipur or West Bengal.
Masih asked Imtiaz to come to Delhi. Masih couldn’t move to Calcutta of his own as he knew that
RAW was keeping an eye on him and his sudden journey to Calcutta would create suspicion. He gave
Masih some money and asked him to meet Usmaan, a ISIS sympathiser in Calcutta who would make
Imtiaz cross the border.

MEA was continuously asking questions to Murad of which Murad had no answers. He was anxious
about Zubeida and her findings. Murad couldn’t contact Zubeida as she was new to the territory and
ISIS would be keeping an eye on her activities and a single mistake could be fatal. Murad waited all
for the truck full of bodies to appear in the border of Erbil where from they had to be taken to the
hospitals for post-mortem. The trucks and the body bags were the only source of communication
between Zubeida and Murad. Truck after truck full of bodies started moving in and out of Mosul
every two days but the result was negative.

CIA kept on sending images of mass graves to Indian Embassies with exact locations, but all Zubeida
could find was the decomposed Iraqi dead bodies, left as a memoir of hell running through the town
of Mosul. Murad had no answers for MEA, so he decided to offer them a plan. He called MEA official
and asked them to make a fake audio clip of any ISIS negotiator, claiming the labours to be alive and
asking the Indian Government to negotiate. This would let the Government buy a bit of time.

MEA made a video as Murad proposed and leaked it with the media where a young guy dressed up
as an ISIS militant asking the Indian Government to negotiate in terms of money and removal of
AFSPA from the valley of Kashmir. The Indian External Minister came to the press with the clip and
said, “Our every security agency is examining the validity of the video. Once we are satisfied with the
claim to be true, we will go forward with further negotiation. I can assure the families of all these
labours that they will be back home safely.”
Imtiaz met Usman in Calcutta who is the owner of a fruit shop. He helped Imtiaz making fake
passports and got him tickets for Bangladesh. Imtiaz was to travel by train as the security is lighter
and he could easily cross the border with thousands of other passengers on board.

Masih was in his house, having dinner with his family, when he saw the news of Government’s claim
in the video. He turned to his father and said, “Its all rubbish. I am telling you. I have seen them
dying with my own eyes.” Masih’s father didn’t reply and kept on having his lunch quietly.

The next morning camera rushed into Masih’s house again where Masih claimed the Government to
be lying again and again. “I have seen my brothers dying. I don’t know why the Government is
continuously lying.” The statement of Masih again rose tension in New Delhi and asked RAW to take
Masih into custody again.

Before RAW could reach Masih, Masih was in his routine call to Abu Obida, “We are planning a huge
mission in India right now. I will tell you every detail as and when time would be there. You are
responsible to arrange funds. Imtiaz and Saqib would be managing funds from Bangladesh and you
have to do it from here. Use your friends and do whatever you want, kidnapping, extortion, robbery,
anything. Once we kill all the infidels of your country, I will give India to you to Rule. You will be the
new Sultan of the place.”

“Inshah Allah.” Masih replied and called his friends in Chandigarh and asked them if they needed
some quick money to make. He never discloses his plans, but Jazzy never wanted to get in. Masih
asked them to meet him at Chandigarh the next day but less he knew that he would be arrested that
night itself.

RAW officials were on their way to Kala Afgana to arrest Masih and before he got arrested, he made
one more important phone call, “Abu Obida is planning some kind of attack in India. He has asked
me to arrange funds. He told me to use my friends and involve them into robbery, kidnapping and
extortion which would fund money for the attack. I have to wait for Farooq and Adeb to arrive in
India.”

“Who are Farooq and Adeb?” The voice of Murad Khan echoed in the chamber of consular for Indian
Embassy in Baghdad.

Chapter 4: Robbing India

Masih was kept in the safe custody of RAW in Bangalore. He kept on asking the officials about the
reason of his arrest, but nobody said anything until Manjunath arrived. Masih was kept in a one
room apartment guarded by RAW officials. Manjunath got into his apartment while Masih was
watching the national news. The families of the deceased had against started asking questions on
the media platforms.

“Can you see, what you have done?” Manjunath kept his bag aside and sat beside Masih.

Masih muted the television and turned to Manjunath, “I really can’t understand my fault. I have said
whatever I have seen. You guys are not believing me.”

“We don’t believe your miraculous escape and we are trying to find out the truth.”
“The truth is that they are all dead.” Masih is looking really agitated with the behaviour of the
officials. Manjunath calmly took a cigarette out of his pocket and gave one to Masih. He took two
puffs out of that and went straight to the window onlooking the main Bangalore Mumbai highway. “I
am a poor man, sir. I don’t understand your politics. I told what I have gone through.”

“Now you will say what we will ask you to say.” Manjunath sounded very firm. Masih turned around
to look at Manjunath. Manjunath went near Masih and told him coldly. “You don’t know what we
are dealing with. Labour crisis in Qatar is always a problem for us and still every year we allow
thousands of workers to fly there and die. I can’t see any quick remedy to that, but your statement
will force many labours to change their decisions and our export of labour force will get lesser and
that is not good for our relationship with the middle east. We are an oil-based economy and we
must not let it happen. Do you understand anything what I have just said?”

Masih coldly nodded his head in negative. Manjunath was still looking into his eyes deeply and
waiting for Masih to answer. Masih was unable to get any meaning of what Manjunath had just said.
But he already knew what he was supposed to do next. He closed his eyes for a while and then
certainly opened it straight into Manjunath’s cold stare and said, “I don’t know what I need to do.
But if you ask me to stay numb, I can. But I won’t stay here as I need to warn because I am the only
earning member in my family and your officials need to provide me a decent job.”

Manjunath was startled with Masih’s sudden demands. Manjunath knew that RAW couldn’t hold
Masih back for a long time as RAW had already been asked questions about Masih’s arrest to which
RAW answered that they had not arrested Masih but were keeping him safe and Masih was helping
them to find the bodies. But, Manjunath had nothing to offer Masih at that point. But Manjunath
had to arrange something really quick or else it would be a huge problem for them to hold back
Masih’s tongue.

Manjunath came out of the safe house and called to Murad and narrated him the incident. Murad
was happy with the plan working in his way. He borrowed a day’s time from Manjunath, and he
would find a job for Masih. Murad already had planned a job for Masih which would help him to
promise easy money to ISIS and by the next day he got back to Manjunath with his idea of posting
him in the Indian Government Mint in Noida.

“I have connections there and we would get him into a job of security guard.” Murad advised.

“But that is a highly sensitive job and without any verification we can’t ask our sources to absorb him
there.” Manjunath was furious but he deeply knew that Masih could only be planted at the place
where they had good connections.

Murad had already planned for Masih to be absorbed. “My sources will take good care of him. He
will be monitored at every step.” Murad asked Manjunath to start his plan to deploy him to Noida
with negative media fuss.

Manjunath made every arrangement and in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, RAW officials took
Murad to Noida and then directly to the mint premise. His name was changed there with some
duplicate documentation to maintain secrecy. He was given a single room in the worker’s mess and
the position of the chief security personnel, garden area. Manjunath warned him again before
leaving that he must not interact with any media official and would not say anyone his actual name
and whatever had happened to him in Iraq. Masih happily agreed.

Manjunath asked his sources to keep an eye on him. Manjunath had his source from the Bar council
to the watchman at the gate. Everyone was tracing Masih’s every movement inside the campus and
even outside the campus. Masih knew it very well that he would be monitored, and he was not a
new nut in this field of job to grow. He spent two days in learning of the assigned job and waited for
Murad’s call which came on the evening of his third day in Noida.

“I want you to call Abu Obida and tell him that you got a job in Indian Government Mint.” Murad
was sure about his plans.

That night when everybody was dozed off to sleep in the mess, Murad got out of his room, and got
safely to the garden and called Abu Obida from his secured number. “I have got a job in a
Government Mint in Inida. It has huge cash and gold piled here. We just need to take one chance
and our entire attack will be financed.”

Abu Obida knew it could be a chance to get a huge stock of funding at one go. He asked Masih to
make plans. “Make a plan that will make the government ashamed. We will kill them with their own
money. I myself will come and see the destruction with my own eyes.”

Zubeida, in Mosul was going all through the state and could only find the stench of mass murders
and atrocities. She was once in a village in the northern province of the state, when she went to a
village which was bombed by the Iraqi as it was one of the earliest strongholds of ISIS. There were
dried decomposed bodies all around the village stuck under the rubbles. These kinds of localities
would certainly not have the mass graves. She decided to go back when an old man approached with
pleading eyes, “Are you here to collect dead bodies?”

Zubeida turned back and nodded in positive with a smile. The man continued, “You know there are
hundreds of bodies lying under all these rubbles and they are getting decomposed here. This place is
becoming unliveable. We are getting infected by deadly viruses. Will you kindly help us to clean all
these places?”

Zubeida didn’t have anything much to say. She knew that these bodies are required to be disposed
and again she had very less time to conduct the operation. Zubeida was about to deny when the old
man held her hands and begged to save them. “My little girl can’t even come out and play. Where
will I send her? What will I show her? It’s all hell around here.”

Zubeida looked at her boys. They were also in the same dilemma. Zubeida thought that she would
have take a tough decision as she was on a mission for her own country and as she again tried to
deny, a little Iraqi girl come running towards them and stopped by her grandfather. Zubeida couldn’t
refuse anymore. She turned to the old man and smiled, “We will help you, sir! But we need people
from your village to clear this up or else it may take days.”

The old man gasped the breath of relief, “I will make arrangements for your living.” He started
running back instantly and stopped at few meters and turned back to take the head count and ran
back to the village again while calling out a name. Zubeida goes near to the little girl and asks softly,
“What is your name?”

“Mariam.” The girl replied while her horrified eyes were still monitoring the unknown faces.

In Bangladesh, Imtiaz met Saqib and started helping him with the expansion of his organ trafficking
business. Though Saqib was an age-old player in the game of organ trafficking, his way of
approaching the donor was very unique. He never went through the route of human trafficking and
then dismantling the organs of the abducted and dumping the bodies. He looked upon himself as a
saint who was helping people in their hard times by allowing them to sell their organs without any
hazard. He set up all his units in the most poor and rural parts of the country where it would be
possible to identify possible sellers. Saqib used to provide the money for medicine and cure and
once the patient recovered, Saqib’s all responsibilities were over. His main line of approach was like
a money lender and when people come asking for money, he used to give these options where they
won’t even need to repay back. “You just need a kidney to live. Even if you sell the other one, it
won’t affect you much. But it can make wonders for your son, when will you send him to the capital
for his further studies.”

Everyone who could sit and listen to Saqib, all might believe what he said. But he never mentioned
anything about the hazards that would follow the man all his life. That was again not his job to do. It
was toxic to expect so much decency from a noted criminal. Whenever they get into a location, they
made a bank of organs and then contacted Obida. Obida would take the help of Zubeida’s western
allies and advised them a proper channel to send these organs to the potential buyers in the west or
even in various parts of south east Asia.

Masih and Murad planned to rob the Government Mint which would attract Abu Obida to come to
India. Murad asked Masih to contact his friends Chandel, Rana and Jazzy. Masih called his friends
and asked them to come to Noida. Jazzy however was reluctant to go in the first place but agreed as
Masih told them that it would be a friend outing. All three of them reached Noida where Masih had
already booked a hotel room for them. The night they arrived Masih offered them expensive alcohol
and even called for prostitutes to make them easy.

“I remember our good old days.” Rana said while going out with a girl.

When they were all set and discussing the good old days Masih got the right time to ask for the real
thing. “I have a job for you guys to do here in Noida.” Masih informed and at once a shadow of
silence prevailed all over the room.

“What job?” Chandel asked politely.

“Each of you will get 20 lakhs rupees for that.” Masih had already started his haggle.

“But what the job is?” Jazzy was getting irritated.

“Now, you have to keep your cool to whatever I say.” Everyone is looking anxiously at him. They
have all seen the television news. “I am working in the Government Mint here. They have some huge
cash and gold in their stock. I have been asked to rob one of his transfers.”

“Rob? Who asked you to rob?” Chandel asked.

“That’s none of your concern.” Masih replied.

“Of course, it is. You are asking us to rob the transfer of a mint. You know what will happen then?”
Jazzy was furious while Rana was calmly having his drink.

“You will rob it on Monday and then will drop the money in Candour. You will stay there for couple
days and then you all will be taken from there to Mumbai where you will a board a flight to Dubai.
You will stay in Dubai till the time we manage everything here.” Everyone was looking at Masih with
their eyes open. “Don’t worry. Government agencies are also helping us. It is like a joint operation.”

“What will you do with the money?” Jazzy asked again.

“You should ask a pawn about your king’s fate. You tell me yes or no. There are many people in line
and trust me, nobody will refuse the offer. I will tell you all the timings of transfers and we will
cumulatively target one and will rob it on the freeway.” Masih said.
Jazzy was going paranoid and started threatening that he wanted to go back to Chandigarh the night
itself. “Fine. There is the gate. Go. But trust me, the agencies that have trusted you will not let you
live peacefully as you now know the deal.” Masih threatened.

“Is that a threat?” Jazzy charged Masih.

“Absolutely not. You guys are my friends and I won’t let anything happen to you. You will be out of
this country in a day or two. You will have money. You can call your family there and I will make
arrangements for you to never return.” Masih was trying very hard to convince them.

“I need some money in advance.” Rana spoke for the first time and the deal was set.

But Jazzy had still not made his mind to accept the offer. Jazzy was trying to set all his equations that
Masih was almost killed in Iraq, ran away from there, was under the custody of the Government for
few days, was in the news and now this. For whom was he working?

Jazzy decided to back off and he sneaked out of the hotel room. When Masih went to their hotel, the
next morning with some breakfast, they all found Jazzy to be missing. Jazzy could be now a potential
threat for Masih. Masih called Murad and narrated the incident.

“How much did you tell him?” Murad asked.

“Not much. But just that we are planning to rob the mint. And…” Masih gulped his own words.

“And what?” Murad was furious.

“I told some Government agencies are also helping us.” Masih said and there was a silence over the
phone on the other side and then the voice of Murad came up, “We have to eliminate him. A
collateral damage.”

Masih instantly started pleading for mercy. He said that he would himself go to Chandigarh and
convince Masih to join the plan. He asked Murad to send him some money which he would give to
Jazzy and would buy his words. But Murad was adamant to listen and hung the phone.

Masih ran inside the hotel room, “If you have thoughts to run away then spare it. They are not going
to leave Jazzy alive.”

“Who are they?” Chandel was hysteric.

“You wanna die to. I tried to save him, but they are big players. I told you. Now they will pull this
Jazzy out of his moose and shoot him dead.” Masih finished his words and ran out of the room.

Jazzy went to Chandigarh and didn’t go back to his house and even though he booked a hotel, he
was identified by some unknown faces and before he could resist, his hotel had been broken and he
was shot in the middle of the head. When police came the next morning, they found the body of
Jazzy lying on the red stench bed sheet, with his eyes wide open to the sky.

Masih initiated his Masih. He was into the team who take note of every transfer van departs from
the mint. He started taking notes of every transfer and finally they decided with a van that leaves the
place at 10.30 in the morning on every Monday. The van is guarded by two-armed security
personnel using outdated 303 British Make rifles. It would not be tough to hijack the van in the
middle of the road. The day and place were decided.
Masih packed his bag and took a week’s leave and went back to his village in Punjab and met Heer
and proposed her for marriage. “I never wanted to say this, but that was the last wish of Manjit.”
Masih told this to Heer’s father.

Everyone was shocked at the sudden revelation but as they knew Masih since decades, they never
argued much to let Heer get married to him. “Are you serious? Because the situation is not
appropriate for a marriage.” Heer’s father told Manjit.

“If you still think that your son will come back then I am more interested to wait for him. But I have
seen him dying with my own eyes.” Masih replied and Heer’s father had nothing much to say about
that. He decided to talk to Masih’s father but requested Masih to wait until some confirmation
comes from the Government that Manjit is dead.

“I can wait all my life.” Masih touched his feet. Heer was listening all these from the window of her
bedroom. Her emotion was the mixture of relief and sadness. The photo of her and her brother
together was kept on the shelf. She looked at it once and tears rolled down her eyes.

On Monday morning, Chandel, Rana and few other men were waiting for the van to take its route.
They were sitting inside a SUV, armed with automatic rifles and pistols. A small car had started
following the van as and when it came out of the mint premise. They were keeping Chandel and
Rana updated. As the van took its final turn and started moving towards the SUV, they start the car
and drove it right in front of the van and marched out of it with their rifles while hurling bullets on
the van. It took them exactly 3 minutes to kill one of the guard men and injured the other along with
the driver and taking the cash and gold and stock and flying away from the spot. First time ever in
the history of independent India, a mint van was robbed.

The local police came to the spot and have no idea about the prospective robbers. They asked their
informants about any movement of any gang, but the report was negative. The way they robbed,
they made it look very easy and was a tight slap on the face of Indian security system. The
Government never allowed the exact figure of misplaced money to come out, but the amount they
robbed was somewhere around 50 crore rupees and 25 kilograms of gold.

The day the robbery in Noida happened, Heer’s father talked to Masih’s family and the date for their
marriage was fixed. Masih got a call from Heer that night and asked Masih to meet near the river.
“Why did you tell my father that Manjit wanted to make it happen? You lied?”

Masih looked into the eyes of Heer for some moment and then smiled and said, “Manjit and I were
together at that last moment. When they threw us inside that truck and masked us with black
clothes, we understood that we were going to die. Manjit hold my hand in that dark and told me
that if I could stay alive, I will marry you and take care of his family and if he stays alive then he will
take care of my parents. I am just trying to fulfil my promise.” Heer looked into the eyes Masih and
kissed him.

Zubeida was on her last day to clean the village of the corpses. She got to know from someone that
there was a house at the corner of the road which was the mess of ISIS new recruits. She went inside
that weary house and started clearing the rubbles. As they removed a huge chunk of cement, they
found almost 10 decomposed bodies under it. All of it were the ISIS fighters. They cleared the bodies
and when they were about to leave, Zubeida found an iron door upstairs. It was locked and
unharmed. She climbed the stairs and tried to jolt the door open, but it was jammed. He asked the
villagers to break it. Two men brought the iron cutters and cut the lock open and as they removed
the door completely after a try of 5 minutes, Zubeida found her feet trembling in fear and
exasperation. A room full of dead bodies with blood stains and bullet marks on the wall. It seemed to
everyone that somebody had put them inside the room and opened fire. Zubeida went nearer to
check the attributes and to her horror, the long hairs of the male figures and the bracelets on their
wrists were easily signalling that Zubeida had completed her search. The missing 39 bodies of the
Sikh labours were found.

Zubeida immediately informed and sent the bodies to Baghdad for post-mortem. Murad asked her
to wait for a day and as the post-mortem report would arrive, she could leave Mosul for now.
Zubeida dropped the idea of reporting back to the camp of Abu Obida and decided to stay in the
village and started counting hours for herself and her team to come out of the hell.

Chandel and Rana in India took all the money and as per Masih’s advice, moved to the safe house in
Himachal. They kept on waiting there anxiously and everyday they got a call from Masih who was
asking them to wait for some more time. Masih confirmed Abu Obida about the amount they got in
their possession.

“Ask them to wait. I will tell you the exact place to deport the money.” Masih was getting agitated as
he knew it would not be long enough when police will get to Chandel and Rana and every plan
would succumb the wound of long wait. Among all these Masih was trying to stay normal and got
himself involved in the preparation of his marriage. He started spending more time with Heer, taking
her for shopping and buying gifts for her became the routine of Masih.

Manjunath called Murad and shared his concern, “Won’t you feel something is not normal? Masih
got appointed 2 weeks ago before the robbery?”

Murad ignored him saying, “Don’t drag that man into this now. He has already created a lot of
trouble for us. We have to now start believing his words as the bodies are found.”

“What?” Manjunath couldn’t believe his ears.

“Yes. I just need the report to come out and will send the official confirmation to the ministry.”
Murad knew that it won’t be long before Manjunath could get to Masih. He started forcing Masih to
get to know about the plans. But nothing depended on his Masih. He had to wait like a mere puppet
for Abu Obida’s order.

The post-mortem report arrived. But it was only 37 bodies that could be retrieved. Murad asked
Zubeida to search for two more. It was now difficult for her to search two bodies in the whole ISIS
world. Zubeida wanted to make her plans. He flunked out of the house and went to that old man
who begged her for help.

“Can I believe you with something?” Zubeida asked.

The old man was looking at her with a confused expression. “Yes,” he could only reply.

“I am an Indian and I am here to search 39 Indian bodies. They were all poor labours like you. They
were butchered by the ISIS in the name of the religion. I am a Muslim myself. Tell me something very
seriously, do you believe in their ideas of killing the innocents?”

“What do you want from me?” The old man coldly asked.

“Do you remember that room full of bodies yesterday? They were all Indians. But I have got only 37
of them. I want 2 more. Do you have any idea where they must be?” Zubeida asked.

The old man observed Zubeida silently for a moment and then told, “Come with me.”
The old man took her to a weary house at the end of the town. As they got inside the house, she
found two men inside a destructed room with some basic necessities on their palate and fear in their
eyes, waiting for their deaths to arrive. They got anxious to see Zubeida. “Don’t worry, she is a
friend. Not Daesh.” The old man confirmed and turned to Zubeida. “They are very scared. They also
belong to India. See, if these are your men.”

Zubeida went near them and looked into their eyes and asked, “What are your names?”

“Gurmeet Daspal and Manjeet Singh Bedi.” The tall men replied. Zubeida kept on looking into the
eyes of Manjeet anxiously.

She came out of the house, took a deep breath and ran towards her team. “We have got our men!”
She shouted. “We need to take them out immediately.” The plan was made. They couldn’t wait for
the truck to arrive again and again it was not possible for all of them to cross the border at once. She
assigned two of his boys and asked the old man for help to take four of them out of the Mosul.

“You saved our lives, my child. I will do it for you.” The old man agreed and the next morning, even
before sunlight, Manjeet and Gurmeet started their journey along with two men of Zubeida
accompanied by their old hand of help.

They manage to escape the eyes of ISIS fighters guiding the border and the old man was able to set
contact with one of the members of the local militia who were fighting with the ISIS. They recovered
them and handed them over to the Iraqi fighters.

On the day of his marriage, Masih got a call from Abu Obida to transfer the robbed money to a shady
character called Abdul Lateef in Kerala. Masih never heard this name before. He bought a day’s time
from Obida and promised to transfer the money by the next day. He disconnected the call and as he
was about to get inside in the house again, his phone buzzed. He picked up the call to find Murad on
the other side of the line.

“We have got Manjeet. He was alive. We are sending him back to India.” Masih heard the most
unbelievable news of the world.

“How come he is alive? Everybody was killed.” Masih was disillusioned.

“I don’t know. I am yet to interrogate him. But I don’t have any other choice but to send him back to
India.” Murad said.

“How can you do that? He will come and say that I work for ISIS.” Murad questioned.

“I don’t have any other choice, Masih. You may have to leave the house for a while.”

“Tomorrow is my marriage, sir. Why don’t you come in front and say that I work for you?” Masih was
getting agitated.

“You know I can’t do that. Who told you to get married in the middle of a mission?” Murad was
getting angry.

Masih stayed calm on the phone for a moment and then disconnected it. He went inside and looked
at his parents. They were happy and contended in themselves. He had to take the toughest decision
now. That night he packed his bags and left the Kala Afghana village, least he knew at that time that
he was leaving his house for ever.
Chapter 5: Bidayatan

Masih’s Back Story: Manjit’s version

Masih, Chandel and Rana were lurking patiently for something in their rented Maruti Van around the
dark of the national highway. Jazzy was as always getting agitated, “I don’t think he will arrive
today.”

Chandel turned towards Jazzy with irritation on his face, “Can’t you sit quietly for some time? We
are following them for a month now. They always cross around this time. Keep your patience.”

Masih was absolutely silent and smoking his counter of weed. He turned to Jazzy and said with
utmost modesty, “You won’t get your share of lucre until you wait for your time.”

Jazzy preferred to not to speak further. They were on a hunt of a small-scale industrialist who daily
followed the route for his home. This was not the first time that they are getting in an illegal activity.
Chandel was booked for molesting a girl and the entire gang went to jail twice for petty clashes. But
to rob someone was their first time.

As they were waiting the car of the industrialist passed them and went ahead towards the town.
Chandel started the van immediately and started following them. They knew their place to force the
car to stop. They kept on following the man for a while and when it got nearer the river bridge,
Chandel increased the speed and overtook the car and stopped it right in front of it. They
immediately covered their faces and came out of their vehicle and pointed their local made pistols
towards the man. They went near the car and found the man to be accompanied by his wife. They
pulled both of them out of the car and made them sit on the road.

“Where is the money?” Chandel shouted.

“What money? I don’t have any money?” The man replied.

Masih instantly took a step forward and slapped the man right on his face. “Where is your collection
of the day?”

The man was the owner of the factory in which Masih worked. He had monitored his boss taking a
handful of money home daily and hence they anticipated that they would have the money on that
day even. “I seriously don’t have any money with me today.” The man shouted in panic-stricken
voice.

“You tell me where the money is, or we are taking your wife with us.” Masih threatened.

The man kept on pleading that he didn’t have any money today, “You can take the jewelleries of my
wife. I have five thousand rupees cash with me. You can take them too. But don’t hurt us.”

All of them looked at each other when Masih signalled Rana and Jazzy to search the car. They went
inside to find the bag below the front seat, stashed with hard cash. Chandel came near the man and
kicked the man, “Do you know what are you going to pay for your lie?” The man was looking at
Chandel with horror on his face. “I will show you. Give me your phones.” Both the man and his wife
took their phones out and gave it to Chandel. He took the phones, passed it to Masih and then grab
the wife of the man and started taking him inside the van. “Now you will see your wife getting eaten
by all of us.” The man was about to hold him back when Masih kicked him away. They took the
screaming woman to their van and pushed her inside, when they were stopped by Rana, “We don’t
have time to play with this woman here.”

“Then we are taking her to our house.” Chandel cracked in disgusting laughter.

“No. We are absolutely not doing that. Let her go.” Rana pulled the woman out of the van while
Chandel was still grabbing her from behind and when they could see a light in the distance.

“Get lost from here before anybody arrives.” Jazzy shouted. Chandel kicked the woman aside and all
of them got into the car and fled away. Police took 3 days to find the robbers and when they were
found, they got mercilessly beaten and booked under the charges of robbery, attempt to rape and
molesting the dignity of a woman. But Masih miraculously escaped the marriage and reached his
village.

He was in constant fear that his partners would give his name to the police. He decided to narrate
the incident to his father at the first place but flanked the idea and took the help of Manjeet, his
childhood friend.

“I was into the security of his mill. These guys used me to do this. Now police are also after me.
Please save me, Manjeet. I don’t want to go to jail.” Masih had almost broken down to Manjeet’s
feet.

“You are saying you are innocent, and I don’t believe you. As you can’t be innocent. But I again can’t
let you get arrested. Let me see, what can I do for you.” Manjeet said in a long breath and got up to
go.

“I hope you won’t tell this to Heer.” Manjit asked in his mellow voice. Manjeet looked at Masih in
wonder for a while and then walked back to his house.

Manjeet broke the news to Masih’s family but tuned it lightly while narrating, “Three guys
blackmailed him to extract information from him and then they robbed his boss. It would not be safe
for him to stay here. I will take him with me to Qatar for work.”

Masih’s father never believed Manjeet as he knew the attributes of his own son but nonetheless, he
never wanted his son to get arrested and put on trial. He asked Manjeet to do the needful and he
would pay for Masih’s flying out of the country.

Manjeet was flying to Qatar to work in a football stadium construction camp and they were in
serious need of cheap labour and nothing could be better place than India to get that. The brokers
are always on a hunt to send labours to the middle east in lieu of marginal commission. And hence, it
was not difficult for Manjeet to arrange everything for Masih. They didn’t have time and so they
applied for the tourist VISA which to be transferred to an employment VISA before commencement
of any job there. But the most important aspect for Masih at that moment was to fly out of the
country. The travel agents arrange for Masih’s VISA in 8 days and he flew out of the country knowing
very less that his life was going to change forever.

The night before leaving the village, Masih and Heer met near the river. “I will come with good
money from Dubai.” Masih hugged Heer tightly and said it in her ears.

“You are not going to Dubai, my love.” Heer whispers back.

“What do you want from there?” Masih asked softly.

“Call me once in a week if you can. I know it’s very expensive, but only if you can.” That night they
made love in the dark wheat fields and while Heer was still travelling through those abysses of that
beautiful night, Masih left the country.

It was early 2013 when Masih reached Qatar for the first time. It was posh and amazingly
intimidating for any eyes which had not stepped out of Chandigarh. Manjeet took Masih to the
gigantic construction site of Al Wakrah Stadium. The stadium was getting made for the FIFA world
cup 2022. It was expected to be finished by the next year and hence, every labour was working in
more than one shift.

“The life is not going to be easy here.” Manjeet warned Masih as they were about to enter the
campus.

“Shall I get paid enough to live an uneasy life?” Masih turned to Manjeet and smiled. “I just need
that. Money.”

“You need to change your attitude here. These are dangerous people. You need to just do your work
and need to eat and sleep quietly.” Manjeet’s tone was serious.

They went in and met the labour instructor Majid. Majid was a tall and sturdy man with distinctive
Arabic features. He welcomed both of them in his grating voice. “You need to deposit your passport
and whenever you will take a leave to go back to your country you will be given the passport back.
And for here, this ID card will be enough.” He handed a pair of ID cards to both of them and took
their passport and put it into a locker.

Majid called Ali and a bungy Indian man appeared and took Masih and Manjeet to their hostel room.
It was descent place with two small beds, a reading table, which most of the labours use as a booze
table and a small wardrobe to keep the clothes and essentials. But one thing was very distinctively
disgusting. There were dust and sand everywhere. Everything was smothered with white mud. “Who
will clean the place?” Manjit turned and asked the bungy Indian man in Hindi.

“You.” He put the bags down and departed. With the very first redolence of the place, Masih could
make it out that the living here was going to be a heck of a job. And his intuition turned out to be
true.

On the very first day Majid walked up to Masih, Manjeet and few other new Indian labours and
cleared his throat, “We have to complete this stadium by the January next year and half of the work
is yet to be done. So, we are working on multiple shifts.” Everybody exchanged a quick anxious
glance among each while Majid continued. “And obviously we will pay for that. And for your benefit,
the extra shifts will be paid double.” Everyone was listening in silence.

Majid gave a piece of paper to each of them which contained the name of the department they
needed to join. Masih opened the chit to find it written – Procurement and RM. He turned the chit
towards and asked, “What’s that?”

“Are you illiterate?” Majid asked.

“No, sir. I know what it reads but I need to get the meaning too.” Masih replied.

Majid looked at Masih for a few moments and then asked Ali to drop him to RM department.
Procurement department was at the end of the site, with its own warehouse. Ali took Masih inside
the warehouse and introduced him to the procurement manager Abu Meher.
For Masih, Abu Meher turned out to be man with a humble soul. On the very first meet Meher told
Masih, “I know how difficult it is to leave your family and coming this far. I won’t make it more
difficult unlike them.” He pointed outside and meant Majid. “What you need to do is just to follow
me and behave properly. On behavioural misconduct and your payment will be stopped. Then even
didn’t pay me for two months in a row.”

“Why?” Masih asked.

Meher looked at Masih and smiled, “Because I refused to consume alcohol with them.”

“Don’t you drink?” Masih chuckled.

“I follow Islam very innately and it forbids the same.” Meher averted Masih’s gaze and said, “Go
back to work.”

During his days of work Masih and Meher came really close. Masih often started going out with
Meher for a dinner and in the weekends, they went to play pokers and range shooting. During one of
their visits to a nearby marketplace, Meher took Masih to a nearby coffee shop. “I will be leaving
soon.” Meher said.

Masih looked at him anxiously and asked, “Why?”

Meher looked in his sides to find if anyone was hearing and came closer to Masih and said, “Did you
hear about the Caliphate?”

“Caliphate?” Masih was trying to understand.

Meher told Masih for the first time that he was from Syria, where there was a severe human rights
violations and war crimes. Sunni Muslims are getting butchered everywhere around the country.
Meher had started following Abu-Bakhr-Al-Baghdadi since 2011. He got influenced by his ideologies
and decided to join the Daesh.

“In Caliphate everything will be wonderful. The roads will be paved in gold and nobody will sleep
hungry. Everybody will have a beautiful house and at night, beautiful virgins will be swaying their
testosterones. We will start from Syria and then we will get into Iraq. We will reach your Kashmir as
well. We will make the world beautiful again.” Meher took a photograph out of his pocket and
showed to Masih. In the photograph, Meher was seen chopping the head of a fettered individual.
Meher was wearing black robe on his body and a monstrous smile on his face.

Masih and Manjeet worked in the construction site for a month and on the day of salary, the
management said that the fund was yet to arrive. The workers got agitated and stopped working.
But it didn’t stay long. They were forced to start the work again. Masih was trying the understand
the way these construction sites treat their labours. The misery continued for one more month. The
labours were forced to work without payment, and they couldn’t say much as their passports were
with the management and they wouldn’t give that back before the tenure overs.

Masih had no money to send back to his parents and he was worried. Meher found him sitting on a
wooden cliff at the corner of the site. He approached him, “What happened, brother?”

Masih turned to look at Meher while his eyes were still bearing the moisture of despondency and
helplessness, “I don’t have any money to send back home. My parents have nothing to eat. They are
not giving my passport back. I don’t know how I can continue.”

Meher looked at Masih for a while and then said, “Will you like to join me?”
Masih was stunned with the sudden offer. “But I am not a Muslim!” That much he could say.

“You don’t have to be Muslim. But you are a deprived soul.” Meher sits closely to Masih. “I am
leaving tonight. I don’t need any passport and so do you. Wait for my call. I will get back to you in
two days.”

“What will be my job?” Masih asked.

“That we will discuss.” He got and started to go and stopped in few meters to turn back and say, “I
promise you that your family will never feel the shortage of food ever.” Meher walked towards his
quarter and was not seen the next morning and for two days after which Masih got a call from an
unknown number. Ali came to the warehouse and asked Masih to attend it. When Masih went inside
the main office and picked the call up, he found Meher on the line, “You need to go to the Al Janoub
mosque today evening. Finish your shift by seven and reach there in an hour.” Before Masih could
say anything, the phone got disconnected.

That evening, as advised, Masih went to Al Janoub mosque and waited at his gate. He never knew
that he was followed by a bald Muslim man, who was having his evening snacks in a tea stall
opposite the mosque. Masih kept on standing there anxiously for 2 hours and when he got agitated
and decided to return, the bald man came to him and said, “Salam Walekum. Follow me.”

He took Masih to a deserted place, which looked like any old weary mosque and showed him some
sacks full of unknown substances. “I was told that you are in the procurement department of Al
Wakrah stadium. You need to keep these things at your warehouse for a while before our men
would come and take them.”

“But how can I keep all these in that place? What are there inside these sacks?” Before Masih could
complete his questions, the man gave him an envelop full of money. “The goods will reach your
campus as per your convenience.”

Masih thought for a moment while weighing the envelop. “Send it by 12.30 in the afternoon,
tomorrow. But you need to make some fake invoices and order summary for these.”

“Subhan Allah. I will.” The man smiled and closed the door.

Next morning, Masih was anxious and counting every second. When the clock handles show 12.30,
Masih left everything and ran towards the main gate and as he was about to reach there, he found
the Al Wakrah procurement truck was getting inside the campus and after it there was small goods
wagon. Masih was surprised, that how easily they could get inside the campus. Masih took them to
the warehouse and buried the substances underneath the actual raw materials.

It kept on happening for more than 2 months when these substances of Meher were taken inside
the campus and deposited. But the task was to take the substances as they would be thoroughly
checked then. Masih was the procurement in charge and hence, nobody paid heed to anything. But
Masih would not be holding it for a long time. He told the same to Abu Meher during one of his calls.

“I will take you and the substances out in two days.” Meher said.

“Where will I go?” Masih asked.

“To a new construction site in Iraq, Mosul.” Meher informed.

“Can I take my friend, Manjeet along with me? He is also in utmost misery here.” Masih requested to
which Meher agreed. That night Masih went to Manjeet and told, “Do you want to earn money?”
“What kind of question is that?” Manjeet was looking irritated.

“Then you have to trust me. We are going out of this shitty place in two days.” Masih’s eyes
glittered.

Manjeet sat straight on his bed. “Where are you going? What about our passports?”

“I will take care of everything. You just need to be ready and waiting near the south hall gate under
construction. And don’t get afraid of anything.” Masih told everything in a breath and slept.

Right after two days, when Masih and Manjeet were waiting at the south hall gate for the men to
arrive, a jeep approached the main gate and the men boarding it, opened fire from their Kalashnikov
rifles and barged inside the campus. They took Masih and Manjeet from the South Hall Gate, went
straight to the warehouse, loaded the substances and went off the campus through the south gate.
It was the first attack of ISIS on any foreign soil, which killed 21 security personnel, but ISIS never
accepted it.

The bald Muslim of Al Janoub mosque gave two tickets to Masih for Baghdad and arranged visas for
them. Masih and Manjeet boarded a flight and reached Baghdad. Manjeet never spoke to him all the
way. He was horrified with the incidents that he had just witnessed.

They checked into a hotel in Baghdad and after two days, an Iraqi man came and took them to
Mosul, another city in Iraq which was called as the financial capital of the state. In Mosul, they got
into a job at a construction site just opposite the Iraqi Army Headquarter. The man asked Masih to
keep on doing his normal job, until Meher reached him with further orders.

“What are you doing? Who are they?” Manjeet asked angrily.

“I don’t know. They just got us a new job.” Masih replied and walked away. Manjeet would be
heading home as soon as he would earn some money. But fate had something very different to offer
him.

Masih got the next call from Abu Meher after 3 days they reached Mosul. He was assigned to a job
of keeping an eye on the movement of every Iraqi forces. Abu Meher send him some money and he
bought a camera. He started clicking pictures of every armoured vehicle of the Iraqi forces. The news
had already started flowing in that ISIS had occupied the entire Syria.

Masih kept on roaming around the city of Mosul in his free time and clicking pictures of everything
he could see that belonged to the Iraqi security forces. One day he found a building which was
heavily guarded by the Iraqi forces. He got to know that it was an arsenal. It had a huge possession
of Iraqi arms and ammunitions, mostly of which were the gifts of America.

Masih and Manjeet stayed there for a long 3 months without any movement and one night he got a
call from Abu Meher that he was sending six men to Mosul who would rob the Arsenal. Masih had to
plan for their stay.

The men arrived in two days and Masih booked a hotel room for them. Masih supplied them with
necessary photographs and amenities they required. The thing which surprised Masih the most was
that the men was not carrying any arms, but he didn’t question. The day was decided and Masih
booked a car and took them near the arsenal and dropped them. They were still not carrying any
arms.
Masih came back to the construction site and started doing his daily job when he got the new that
six ISIS suicide bombs exploded at the Mosul Arsenal killing 70 Iraqi soldiers and leaving 300 soldiers
wounded. It was the first ISIS attack in the heart of ‘Al Anbar Governorate’.

That night Masih was behaving like a paranoid. He didn’t sleep all night and kept on walking up and
down of the worker’s mess corridor. Manjeet asked him twice about his worry but he never
bothered to reply and the next morning Masih was vanished. Manjeet searched him all around the
place to get no clue of his whereabouts.

The news started coming in that ISIS had already started their attack on Iraq. They took over the
cities of Fallujah and Hit and now they were moving towards Mosul.

The construction site had around 200 workers working, and as the news started spreading, the
people started going back to their own countries. Even the natives of Mosul were also fleeing the
city. Manjeet was yet to leave the place due to lack of money and there were around 40 more Indian
workers with him. After an hour of discussion when they cumulatively decided to go to Baghdad, the
Iraqi army stepped in the site and requested the workers not to go.

“We are standing as the first line of defence to protect you. Every entry post to the city has more
than 2000 Iraqi soldiers. Daesh can’t come near the city even.” An Iraqi soldier stated. Later, when
the things started going out of their hands and they had no way to vacate the city, they found that
the management had asked the soldiers to barge inside the campus and to stop the workers from
going. They couldn’t afford to hold the production. And the Daesh came to the city through the same
entry posts which had around 2000 soldiers posted. The reality was far different from what Iraqi
soldiers claimed. There were only 50 soldiers posted in each entry post and when the Daesh started
their attack in numbers, most of them were either killed in the gun battle and the rest were either
fled or crucified or burnt alive or hung to death by the Daesh on the middle of the road. ISIS attacked
Mosul with 1500 militants with the intention to loot American armoury but when the timid Iraqi
army surrendered and left their post, they took over all the town in 4 days.

Manjeet and all his mates were trapped inside the construction site, waiting for their fates to get
sealed. There were around 50 Bangladeshi workers present at the site. The construction had
completely stopped, the food supply and electricity were cut and on the night of 11 th June 2014, a
truck full of Daesh armed militants got inside the campus and cordoned the entire area. They asked
all the militants to form a queue. The militants were scared and crying when they were forced to
stand in a line and Masih, cladded in black robe and Kalashnikov hanging down his shoulder, came
out of the front seat of the truck and went straight to Manjeet.

Manjeet was horrified to see Masih there. Masih whispered in Manjeet’s ears, “Nothing will happen
to you. I will safely transport you across the border. But for now, you have to come with us. This
place is not safe for you all.”

Manjeet couldn’t say a single word. He was looking at Masih with still eyes. The militants pushed the
labours to board the truck and they took him to the basement of a recently destructed shopping
mall. They were kept in dark and made to sleep on the patchy floors. ISIS gave food to every labour.

Next morning Masih came in two other men and gave a cellular phone to Manjeet. “Call Indian
Embassy in Baghdad and ask them to rescue you.” Manjeet looked at him in wonder and took the
phone and dialled the number. It was Murad on the line.
“Sir, my name is Manjeet. I have 40 Indian and 50 Bangladeshi workers stuck with me in the
basement of Hood Shopping mole. Kindly, send someone to take us back.” Manjeet repeatedly
pleaded to Murad.

“We will be doing something. But it will take time. Till then, try to hand in there.” Murad
disconnected the call. But no help came from the embassy. Masih gave the phone again to Manjeet
and asked him to call his family. “Don’t mention anything to Heer about me.” He warned.

Manjeet dialled the number and Heer picked up the call, “Go and contact Ministry of External Affairs
right now. We have been kidnapped by the ISIS and they may kill us in a day or two.”

Heer ran back to her father and gave the news. Manjeet’s father decided to go to Delhi and as
everyone was allowed to talk to the family, the news spread quickly, and the media attention was
diverted to the case. But on the night of 14 th June, Manjeet, along with another Indian labour,
managed to climb the window of the sewage pump room and ran for his life.

Present

Manjeet was giving his statement to the RAW officials in the Delhi office. “We kept on running for 2
days and got into a village in the outskirts of Mosul. An old man helped me to hide in a weary
dilapidated building. The village was cleared by Iraqi soldiers a few days back and I kept on hiding
there until Zubeida came and found me.”

Manjunath took a chair and sat in front of him and spoke gently, “Do you what happened to your
colleagues?” Manjeet was looking at him with anxious eyes. “They were killed by ISIS and their
bodies are found.”

“I know who did this. I should haven’t believed Masih. He must have got converted by Abu Meher
and became radical.”

Manjunath got out of the room and called Murad. “Manjeet is saying that Masih is an active ISIS
cadre. What to do with this now?”

“We first have to fact check his statement.” Murad replied.

“We don’t have time for that. We have to get Masih as soon as possible. He fled of his marriage and
we don’t have any idea, where is he.” Manjunath said.

Murad tried to convince Manjunath but RAW began their hunt to find Masih. And Murad had no
other way but to confess.

“Masih is my man. He is working for RAW. He is an agent.” Murad said to Manjunath. “You need to
get Masih and keep him in confidence. Abu Meher and Abu Obida are planning an attack in India and
we don’t know where. So, we need Masih to get to the end of it.” Manjunath was utterly confused.

Masih was now in Kerala and got a call from Abu Obida to meet a man and give the robbed money
to him. Masih went to meet that man in a small café in Cochin. The man was from Sri Lanka and
could speak only Sinhala and English. Masih handed over the money to him and came out of the café
and called Murad. “I was working day in day out for you and even risked my life. You could have
easily stopped Manjeet to come to India.”
“I couldn’t. MEA was pressurising me to send him back. I didn’t have any option. But Manjunath
knows about you. I told him that you work for me.” Murad was trying hard to convince Masih.

“I may be poor, but I am not a fool. I am certainly not going to meet Manjunath. Better you listen to
me carefully. The danger is lurking over the country. I have just transferred the money to someone,
whom I don’t know. Now they will make further plans. India will have to bear the consequences
now.” Masih disconnected the phone and got inside the Cochin railway station.

Chapter 6:

RAW was trying to trace Masih in Cochin as Murad identified that the call came from there. RAW
was trying to trace any movement of money in the underbelly of Cochin but couldn’t find anything. It
seemed like the entire money was transported outside India. Six months back few guys from Cochin
joined ISIS but came back and surrendered to RAW. RAW kept them in custody for few days and
then left them to lead a normal life. Now, it was the time to keep an eye on their movements as well.
Their cyber movement was also monitored by RAW, but they couldn’t find anything that could lead
to Masih or to the man, whom Masih gave the money.

“It is not possible to get this man like this. We don’t have any idea of where he is and whom he is
probably meeting. He is not using any cyber networking form to get in touch with others. He is either
using International SIM cards or going and meeting the people himself.” Manjunath told Murad.

Murad himself tried to contact Masih in many ways but couldn’t, when he finally had to find things
in his own ways. He called Zubeida again, “You have to return to Mosul. Abu Obida and Abu Meher
are trying an attack in India. Go and find the plans.”

“But for that, I need to stay close to them. But I was working on the fields. How will it be possible?”
Zubeida asked.

“You know that better than me.” Murad said and put the phone down.

Zubeida had no other choice but to return to Mosul. She contacted her boys and told the plans. They
were boosted by Zubeida for the mission. She then called Abu Obida, “I need to come back. I am yet
to finish with all the areas.”

Obida agreed and Zubeida and her team reached Mosul the very next day. She followed the same
route to reach Mosul and got directly to the camp of Abu Obida. Obida greeted her with a smile.

“Welcome again. You have done a lot for our organisation. Inshah Allah with this kind of help we will
be soon all over the world.” Obida asked.

Zubeida thought for some and constructed her appropriate words, “I had no idea about the thought
and the ideologies of the caliphate before I came here. I won’t lie to you. I was here just for the sake
of money. But after being here for so many days and looking around the changing dynamics, I will
like to tell you something.” Abu Obida was listening to her very carefully. “I am originally a Kashmiri
Muslim and I have seen atrocities there. The infidels will never leave Kashmir in peace. My Abba left
the valley in the early 2000 and we settled down here. I need you to think about Kashmir and our
Muslim brothers there.”
Obida looks at Zubeida closely and said, “Every Muslim brother in this world will come under one
umbrella, soon.”

“I have some people in Kashmir who wants to join the ISIS. We can start a movement against India.”
Zubeida was trying to offer a plan.

“We already have.” Obida smiled and took her inside the camp. Zubeida knew that she had to stay
really close with Abu Obida to know the plans in detail. Inside the camps, there were few Jihadist
busy in their training and as Obida and Zubeida entered, they all stood and saluted. “They are our
best men.” He went close to a tall white man and put his hand on his shoulder, “He is a German
Muslim. He believed in the idea of the Caliphate. He left his family and came here. Allah give mercy
to his children.” He looked around other people and said, “There are many from Cambodia, Jamaica,
Singapore, Pakistan, Japan and of course, America. Like this, we have few Indians too. We are
preparing them to fight the war.”

“Can I meet my Indian brothers.” Zubeida was feeling nervous with her increasing curiosity.

Obida waited for some time and then said in a breath, “Are you an investigating agent?” Zubeida
was afraid all over her face, her ear auricles turned red and her eyes were saying that she was in loss
of her words. The room was in silence for a while and then Obida burst in laughter, “God forbid me
for doubting a beautiful lady like you. Please come.”

Obida took her to another and as they went inside, Zubeida found two familiar faces inside it. Obida
turned to her and said, “Adeb and Farooq. These are our Indian soldiers. They are going to be in
India soon and one of our fighters is already there. They are going to do something which had never
been done before.”

Zubeida looked at the boys for a while and then turned to Obida with an iota of confidence, “How
can I help you in this?”

Obida smiled and replied, “By having a cup of tea with me.” He escorted her out of the camp, “Do
you like Amitabh Bachchan.”

“Of course.” Zubeida replied.

“Let’s watch a movie together. Deewar is my favourite.”

At night, Zubeida was allotted a single room, very close to that of Abu Obida and Abu Meher. She
opened her laptop, inserted the dongle and started searching for something. After a while she found
the news of three Indian boys joined the ISIS, and it was exactly the two boys in the camp today
afternoon. Adeb and Farooq. “The third one must be in India, now.” She thought. She opened her
chat box and send a secret message to Murad, “ISIS plans in India confirmed. Adeb and Farroq are
coming to India. Locations are yet to be verified.”

When Murad exhausted every possibility to find Masih, he left for India and on his way, he got
Zubeida’s message. Now, for him the best possible option to follow as a lead were Adeb and Farooq.
But he was not sure about their arrival in the country, but one thing was pretty evident that they
would get in touch with Masih. So, if Adeb and Farooq could be followed, Murad could get to Masih.
Masih instantly took his phone out and called Manjunath, “I want the details of every passengers
arriving from middle east at every airport in India to be monitored. Adeb and Farooq would be here
soon, and we need to get them to get to Masih. I will try to crack Masih, we will go after the trail or
else we will start the hunt.”
Manjunath circulated the photograph of Adeb and Farooq to every immigration department at every
airport in India. But Manjunath had the hunch that they would follow a different route altogether
and so did they. Masih called Abu Obida that night, “Send Adeb and Farooq. We need to get ready
for the final showdown now.”

When Zubeida got up next morning, she couldn’t find Adeb and Farooq anywhere in the camp. She
strolled for about an hour and when her search got exhausted, she went Abu Obida and asked,
“Where are my Indian brothers?”

“They have sailed in the ocean.” Obida replied.

Adeb and Farooq had started their journey from Mosul and reached Erbil. They met few of the
labour contractors there, who were very close to Daesh. The contractors send them to Dubai and
from Dubai they took the flight for Kathmandu, where they find Masih standing outside the airport
with a broad smile.

Masih took them to a house in the outskirts of the Kathmandu city. It was a small house, with many
ventilators and respiratory openings. It more looked like a lab, than a residence. Masih took them
inside where they had seen the most horrifying scene of their lives. The ground floor was all covered
with bloods, and few Nepali men were in their job to extract organs from the dead bodies.

“What is this?” Adeb asked.

“Finances.” Masih turned and smiled and took them upstairs. “We need money to run an
organisation. We have this kind of laboratories all over Bangladesh and Nepal. Imtiaz and Saqib also
send their findings here in this lab and from here we deport it to Iraq.”

“So, that’s why this girl is there, finding dead bodies. Everyone says that she has some real good
contact.” Adeb replied.

“Which girl?” Masih stopped in the middle of their way and turned back.

“Are there is a young girl helping is to traffic organs to the west. Day before yesterday, we got to
know that she is Kashmiri and had some serious grudges against the country. I was thinking of tying
a belt of explosives round her waist and push him inside the parliament.” Adeb smiled lecherously
while Masih thought for some time and smiled back.

Masih asked them to stay silently for few days before the further orders and then the movements
would start. Imtiaz and Saqib would also join them soon. Both of them got excited to hear about
Imtiaz. “Its really wonderful when three of us will die together to show these infidels that we have
already arrived. The Caliphate is at your door. Takbir.” Adeb narrated in high voice followed by Allah-
u-Akbar by Masih and Farooq and the workers downstairs.

Maish came out of the building and called Abu Obida. He didn’t pick the phone and then he called
Meher and said, “Since how long Sheikh Sahab has not been with a woman?” Meher couldn’t
understand any of his words. “Is Sheikh Sahab is having a good time with an Indian spy. Does Indian
flesh tastes good?”

“What are you talking about?” Meher said.

“This girl was here to find all the bodies of the Indians labours and now ask yourself, why she is again
here after getting them?” Meher was completely silent on the other side. “Ask Sheikh Sahab how
much information has he already spitted inside the mouth of that whore? Keep her alive till I am
back.” Masih disconnected the call while Meher was going completely paranoid.
It was not very rare to get a CIA or Mossad or MI5 spy in Syria or Iraq and ISIS had already executed
many, but this time it was different. A young girl, merely 25 years old, was inside the ISIS camp,
sitting close to the ISIS consular of Iraq for about 2 months and extracting information. He ran inside
and found Obida was sitting along with Zubeida and watching a Hindi cinema and having snacks. He
barged inside the room and looked straight to Zubeida and said, “Who has sent you?” There was a
dead silence in the room for a while and then Zubeida stood up and looked at Meher and said, “The
Indian Government.” And before Obida could understand anything, Meher punched Zubeida on her
face and dragged her outside the room.

That evening Zubeida became the matter of entertainment for the whole camp. All the militants in
the camp accumulated at one place to take a glance of the show. She was tortured, beaten, groped
and molested by several. Zubeida slowly closed her eyes and shouted in anger and pain, “Shoot me
you fucker.” Abu Meher came close to Zubeida and said, “You have to stay alive and relish the pain
of your mates. They will be here soon and will get burnt alive. I will spill your skin myself.” He turned
to two of his mass militants, “Take her inside, strip her clothes and make a video. We will send that
personally to New Delhi.” He smiled and departed. Blood was dripping over Zubeida’s eyes. She tried
to see through her blurry glances and found Obida standing at the corner of the gathering and
looking at Zubeida. She smiled when she found the pity in his eyes. The militants took her inside and
all that could be heard through the wall was the repeated moaning and screaming of Zubeida.

Murad was about to enter the office of MEA to have a secret meeting with the Minister of External
Affairs and Home Minister as Manjunath had repeatedly pleaded him to do that. He had himself
send a national threat to India and he must be the one who would be answerable, he got a call from
an unknown number. “Save your heroine in Mosul if you can. She is performing her art in front of
the thousands of fighters now.” It was Masih’s voice which shook the soul of Murad. He knew what
could Daesh do to a spy and again if it is a woman.

He immediately tried to call Zubeida but couldn’t get her. He called one of her boys who were still
hunting for more bodies in the middle of the desert of northern Iraq. “Where is Zubeida?” He
screamed over the phone.

“She was in the camp.” Murad stamped his foot in disgust when he heard that.

“Your cover is blown. Try to come out of Mosul as early as possible.” Murad advised.

“But how can we. We are already cordoned by ISIS fighters. We can’t go of our own. Certainly, not
everyone.” The boy had an anxious voice. Murad was about to say something when he heard
Manjunath’s voice from behind. He turned to find Manjunath’s worried and horrified face.

“Come in. We need to show you something.” Manjunath said and went inside the building again.

Murad waited in his thoughts for a while and then fumbled over the phone, “Stay tight at wherever
you are. Don’t go back to ISIS camps and keep your satellite phone with yourself, always.” He hung
the phone and ran inside. He never knew the thing waiting for him inside was far more horrifying
than his thoughts.

As Murad stepped into the room, there was silence all around. All the eyes were on him when the
joint secretary of External affairs played a video on his laptop and asked him to have a look in it.
What Murad saw, could make anyone losing all believes from humanity. Zubeida was parading
naked in front of the room filled with ISIS militants, while they were hurling lecherous abuses on her.
The militants were waiting for their turn to rape her one by one.
Murad averted his eyes from the laptop screen and sat silently for some time. Minister of External
Affairs cleared her throat after a while, “We have turned a pimple into a cancer. Masih was your
man and now he is with ISIS and lurking around the country with his horrific plans. And, how you are
going justify this video?”

“I will get Masih within 2 days and will get Zubeida out, dead or alive. She won’t be tortured more.”
Murad came out of the office. MEA and Home Ministry had no other option but to keep their trust in
Murad as he was one of the most competent agents of India in the middle east for 26 years.

Murad came out of the ministry office, get into his car with Manjunath and called Steve and
Rashford. “I need your help, mate.” Murad said when Steve received the call.

“You got your bodies, right. What do you want more from us?” Steve asked.

“Zubeida is in the captivity of ISIS…”

“I know.” Steve interrupted Murad before he could finish. “I have seen the video. How can you send
a 24-year-old inexperience girl into the heartland of ISIS?”

“She is a soldier, Steve. I see her as a soldier.” Murad replied. “Go in to get her or kill her. She must
not bear this torture for days.”

“How will we do that?” Steve asked.

After the attack of Mosul, Iraqi forces and local militia along with the Kurdish forces were trying to
get Mosul free of ISIS. By then they were cleared Hit and Fajullah. Steve and Rashford decided to
take help from local militia to get the boys first. They decided to active two CIA units inside Mosul
and asked them to find the camp where probably Zubeida is kept. The probable location could be
the place where Abu Obida was. The CIA units started searching for the camp while Murad shared
the location of the boys in the outskirts of Mosul. Steve and Rashford took few Kurdish soldiers
along with some local militia and decided a time to barge in the village and retrieve the boys.

In India, Murad and Manjunath got after Masih to find his trace. Murad found that the last call that
came from Masih was done from Uttar Pradesh. “If he got to know about Zubeida, it is must be from
Adeb or Farooq and that means they are here.”

Murad took the list from the Delhi and Calcutta airport to find any suspicious arrival of any individual
from any middle eastern or African countries. But RAW couldn’t find any. “If he is in UP then they
must have been somewhere near too. What could be the best place to land?” Murad was trying to
think hard and when something clicked him, he turned to Manjunath with glitter in his eyes,
“Kathmandu?”

Manjunath took the data out of the Kathmandu airport and found Adeb and Farooq landed in
Kathmandu 3 days back. But Adeb and Farooq could be anywhere in Nepal and India. It was a
difficult hunt for RAW. Manjunath activated all his units in Kathmandu and started taking
information from the agents of other Intelligence agencies, when a MI5 agent who is staying in
Nepal under the garb of a travel enthusiast and philanthropist, told Manjunath that the organ
trafficking had been increased in Nepal for past three months. Several groups of Nepal, Bangladesh
and India had got connected in this practice, whose main hub is a village named Tumong, 60-
kilometre west of Kathmandu.
“Masih was into organ trafficking since he is here. I helped him to send his man to Bangladesh. He
must be around this place even if Farooq and Adeb is not here. Ask your team to keep an eye on this
place and don’t make any arrest till we get Masih.” Murad advised.

A team of RAW got into the village, which is the starting point of Kanchenjunga trek route under the
garb of a tourist and found the lab where Adeb and Farooq was. They kept an eye on this place for
22 hours and after which Masih was spotted coming in.

“Harjit Masih is here.” The cellular phone of Murad buzzed.

“Are you confirm?” Murad was trying to be cent percent sure.

“100%.” The agent replied.

“I want Masih without any fuss. Take him when he is alone. Adeb and Farooq must not get any hint
of it.” Murad suggested.

The agents waited for another hour before Masih came out of the lab and boarded his car. They
followed Masih till the market where he got down to get some medicine. They waited for Masih to
get out of this congested before they could take them in custody. And as Masih crossed the market
and came to a dark hilly road, they forced Masih’s car to stop and arrested him.

The agents took Masih straight to New Delhi where Murad and Manjunath were waiting to
interrogate him. Masih was kept in a room and had given some food. Masih was patiently eating
when Murad got inside the room.

As Masih saw Murad, he smiled and said, “Have they taken me to Baghdad, or you are in New
Delhi?”

Murad calmly took his chair and sat in front of Masih. “You must be forgetting the days when you
came to me running for help. I could have easily handed you over to the Iraqi forces as the
conspirator of the Arsenal blast and they would have hung you on the street of Iraq. And this is how
you are paying me back?”

Masih smiled and said, “And in return of that favour I did many things for you and for you RAW.”

“You did it for your country.” As Murad told this, Masih started laughing loudly. Manjunath was
observing all these through a black glass.

“You know you are actually sounding like Abu Obida. He keeps on barking about Islam, like you are
barking about your country.” Everyone outside the room was startled with the words of Masih. “Abu
Meher used me in lieu of money, you used me in lieu of money and nobody of you had ever tried to
understand that I am a poor man and whatever I was doing, it was for survival.” Murad was hearing
Masih patiently.

“Murad Sir, I wanted to come back to my country. I was not an ISIS when I first went to you. I was an
innocent labourer from India. What you did? You send me back to the camps just to be an eye, ill-
equipped and untrained to just to maintain a good relationship with Iraq. You don’t know the value
of a poor Indian life.” Masih continued.

“That is the reason you are helping ISIS to do a blast in this country.” Murad was trying to break him
emotionally.
“Fuck their religion and fuck your country. I told you repeatedly to not to send Manjeet now. You
took the love of my life. He never liked me as a person and he never wanted me to get married with
Heer. I lost my Heer forever.” Masih had moisture in his voice.

“What you need me to do Masih?” Murad asked.

“You can’t do anything now. On the day of the coming Easter, ISIS has planned to launch 6 suicide
attacks in India.” There is a tinge of smile in Masih’s face.

“In the churches?” Murad was getting anxious.

Masih smiled and replied, “Do you have any idea Murad Sir, how they convert poor Hindus and
Muslims into Christianity. They made these churches not to pray but to preach hatred against other
religion. They must bear the consequences.”

“Which church is their target?” Murad asked.

Masih looked at Murad for a while and said, “Make a false case against Manjeet and state him as the
culprit. Tell the world that he was sent by ISIS for the blast and kill him in an encounter and get my
Heer back to me. I will tell you everything.”

Murad along with other officials couldn’t believe what they just heard. It was impossible for RAW to
kill Manjeet and show him as the ISIS agent. Hence, Murad decided to take the information out of
Masih other way around. They locked him in the detention room for 3 days and kept on torturing
him mentally and physically and couldn’t make him speak even a work. A tired and weary Masih was
lying on the ground, while he was bleeding from his anus due to the torture, Murad came in the
room. The detention room was stinking horribly with the culmination of the smell of Masih’s blood,
sweat, urine and vomit. Murad came and sat before Masih. Masih leaped his tired head a little to
find Murad and feebly smiles, “Kill Manjeet. I will tell you everything.”

“You know that we can’t do that. This is against our decorum.” Murad replied.

“Decorum of RAW?” Masih horribly smile. “Bring me my Heer and make me a hero in her eyes. That
you can do, I hope.”

Murad stormed out of the room and asked Manjunath to make every arrangement to bring Heer to
Delhi. Manjunath instantly sent his men to Kala Afghana village to meet Heer. When Heer heard
about Masih in the custody of RAW and wanted to meet her, she refused. Manjunath called Heer
and said, “That man who has done everything for this country, wants to meet you one last time.”

Heer agreed to come to Delhi. The officials took her straight to the detention room where Masih was
waiting for her in a set of new clothes. He was wearing a blue shirt and a black pair of jeans, which
was not enough to hide the bruises. As Heer got into the room, Masih tried to get up feebly. Heer
was standing at a distance, perplexed and anxious. He came near to Heer and crossed her to go
straight to the camera. “You should not listen to the conversation of two people who are deeply in
love with each other.”

The officials took both of them to the garden behind the building as Murad asked the couple to sit in
silence. Masih came close to Heer and asked, “Can I hold your hands?” Heer didn’t say anything.
Masih touched her hands gently, while tears rolled down Heer’s eyes. “I am working with RAW since
I was in Qatar. Murad Sir can vouch for that. Manjeet was meeting various ISIS people. I went and
informed this to the embassy when Murad Sir told me to stay behind him. They were planning some
attacks in India. He wanted to involve me, and I got involved to take the plans out. Then one day he
got vanished and returned back after 3 months when Mosul was taken by Daesh. He came and killed
all my mates by I managed to run away. When he was caught, he became innocent as his name was
also there in the labour list. They send him back to India where he told me as the culprit as he knew
that I had every idea of his doings in Iraq. I couldn’t say anything as I was working for my country. 2
days back, his men kidnapped me and beaten me to half-dead when RAW people retrieved me.”

Heer was listening Masih attentively, “Who are his men?”

“The ISIS people. They are planning an attack in India. I knew it, so they wanted to kill me.” Masih
replied.

Heer couldn’t believe her ears. She got up and started going when Masih called out her name, “You
need to do a job for me! For this country! For all these innocent people who are going to be killed in
that blast.” Heer turned back with horrified eyes. “RAW neither can arrest him, nor can kill him. And
just by lurking behind him they can’t get what they want to. Manjeet is a thread for everything. If he
is dead, then their plan is over for now. RAW want him alive but I want him dead.”

“I can’t kill my own brother.” Heer was looking paranoid.

“You have to.” Masih came close to Heer. “Your brother is the reason, why we are not together.”

Heer stormed out of the place with rage and anger. Murad vouched for every statement of Masih
and dropped her back to her village.

Murad had kept his promise and now it was the time for Masih. “Now you need to tell me
everything.”

“National Thawheed Jamath is planning a blast in the six churches of India. Locations are yet to be
confirmed but I have supplied the money to a man in Cochin.” Masih informed.

“Who was the man?”

“I don’t know. He was speaking Sinhala.” Masih replied. “I need to go out as Meher will give me the
location tomorrow.” Masih thought for some time and asked his men to leave him at the ISBT bus
stand from where he would be making his journey back to Kathmandu.

As Masih was coming out of the RAW head quarter, Murad came to him and asked, “May I know
what you have exactly told to Heer?”

Masih smiled and replied, “I just relieved some burden of my shoulder. Let me finish all these things
and I will marry her, if I stay alive.”

Murad smiled and said, “You are a fighter, Masih.”

“I am a survivor.” Masih boarded the car and went away.

That night in Kala Afghana village, Heer was sitting in the dark with red shot eyes and trembling
hands, and Manjeet was lying on the ground in front of her, coughing blood.

Chapter 7:

Days when Masih was missing in Mosul: Murad’s version

That night after the blast Masih was behaving like a paranoid. He didn’t sleep all night and kept on
walking up and down of the worker’s mess corridor. Manjeet asked him twice about his worry but he
never bothered to reply and the next morning Masih was vanished. Manjeet searched him all around
the place to get no clue of his whereabouts.

Masih booked a hotel in Mosul and stayed there for three days. He was in constant fear that Iraqi
forces would get his whereabouts and will execute him for the conspiracy. He couldn’t share his
concern his Manjeet too as Masih never felt Manjeet to be his good friend. He got into the room
with a bottle of water and stayed there without food and water. When he came out after 3 days he
couldn’t walk properly. He thought of calling back home and asking his parents for help. But he
thought of their helplessness from India and didn’t call. He thought of surrendering himself to the
Iraqi Army and would prove that ISIS had actually used him for the conspiracy. He got into a Iraqi
army camp and made a story that he was kidnapped by the ISIS fighters, some of which were
involved in the Iraqi Arsenal blast and then they left him locked in a room for 3 days. They took his
passports and money and he was immediately needed to be transported to the Indian Embassy in
Baghdad.

The Iraqis kept on asking that which construction site he was working in, but he kept refusing to tell
the name on the ground that he couldn’t read or write and neither he could understand their
language. Iraqi army decided to take him to Baghdad, to the consular of Indian Embassy. That was
the first time Masih met Murad.

Masih was paranoid and kept on crying for an hour in the interrogation room and kept on saying, “I
want to go back to my country.” Some of the Iraqi officials were also present on the site. Iraqi
officials were more interested in his knowledge about the Arsenal blast case.

“Why did they kidnap you?” Murad asked.

“Sir, my construction site is very irregular with payments. I was in urgent need of money and I met
these guys few days back at Mosul. They asked me to keep few of their essentials at the construction
site and I did that.” Masih replied.

“You didn’t bother to ask them what these essentials were.” Murad asked.

“They told me that they were thieves and have looted a businessman. I know it is wrong, but I didn’t
have any other option but to help them.” Masih tried to justify his actions.

“Then?” A deep voice of an Iraqi officials came from the corner of the room.

“Then they asked me to book 3 hotel rooms for few men. I did that. And the night before the blast
they took all the essentials from the site and landed in the hotel room. When I looked into the
essentials it appeared fishy. I tried to go out, but they asked me to stay. Next morning, six of them
left the hotel room and then I got the news of this blast. They kept me there and fled.” Masih started
crying again.

“What were they talking about?” Murad kept on questioning.

“I don’t understand their language. But one of them was named as Abu Meher. He was the
procurement manager at the site in Qatar where I used to work. He came the night before the blast.
He was saying that Daesh will take over Mosul very soon. They were planning to attack Hit and
Fajullah too.” That information acted like a shock wave throughout the room. The officials started
staring at each other.

“How close are you with Abu Meher?” Murad asked again.

“He used to look at me as a brother. He even asked me to accept Islam and get into the army of
Daesh.” Masih told.

The officials left Masih in the room alone and got into an important meeting. What Masih did
unknowingly was also a crime. But Masih could be helpful to them as he knew Meher really well.

“What are you asking me to do?” Murad asked one of the Iraqi officials.

“Look, your man has committed a serious crime. The punishment of this may not be an execution as
he did it unknowingly, but the Iraqi Government is in extreme rage and they won’t get anyone
behind the blast they may execute him. Again, on the bigger level, if this will come out that an Indian
helped Daesh in the blast, that may disturb the relationship between the two countries.” The official
said.

“What are you asking me to do?” Murad asked the official again.

“As he knows Meher closely, lets send him to Meher as our agent and he will bring us the
information about Daesh’s plan to attack Mosul or Hit or Fajullah.” The official made the statement.

Murad got very agitated with the proposal as he knew, if Daesh would get to know about it, they
would execute Masih and that would be again a huge trouble for the Indian Government, that how
an Indian labour could be used as an agent of Iraq. Murad tried to deny the proposal, but he knew
that if Iraqi he had denied, Iraqi officials would have taken Masih into custody, and would have
tortured him to death. “I will talk to him.” Murad agreed.

He went back to Masih, alone this time and told him about their decision. Masih never wanted to go
back to Mosul or Daesh and he kept on pleading to Murad to not to send him back. “Its better you
shoot me here.” He asked. “If they find that I am working for you, they would either burn me alive or
chop my head or torture me to death.”

Murad made him understand, that there were some protocols and what Masih did in Mosul is a
grave crime and Iraqi army might also torture him to death out of rage or would have executed him.

“You better go to Mosul and take a chance. You just need to sleep out some information and I
promise you that you don’t have to do this for more than a month. Then you would be back to India.
At least, give me something to convince these morons.”

Masih had no other option but to accept the proposal. He thought it to be month’s job, of which
least he knew that it was going to be a job of his lifetime. He never understood that he would be a
ping pong ball, to be played in the court of the authorities.

“When do I have to leave?” Masih asked.

Masih was given a brief training of a week and between that time ISIS attacked Hit and Fajullaha and
captured both the cities and Masih’s words were proved to be absolutely true. The believe of Murad
and the Iraqi officials increased in Masih and they deported him to the outskirts of the city of
Fajullah, which was then under the Daesh rule.
Masih reached a village near Fajullah which had got the maximum number of ISIS sympathisers and
tried to set contacts with Abu Meher. He met and old man who used to take information about the
movement of Iraqi forces and local militia to Abu Meher.

“I need to meet Abu Meher.” Masih told him near the mosque.

“How do you know Abu Meher?” The man was curious.

“You don’t have to know that. Just go and tell him that Harjit Masih wants is waiting for him here.”
Masih said and walked off the place.

He had now to wait for Abu Meher’s call to get into Fajullah. He waited for two days and when the
old man came back, he got in touch with him near the mosque again. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t react much. I think he doesn’t want to see you.” The old sarcastically smiled.

“I will wait. Tell him that.” Masih said and walked off again.

He waited for two more days and on the evening, when he was about to call Murad that Meher was
not allowing him to meet, Masih’s door was knocked and as he opened the door, two boys, merely
12 years old, were standing with Kalashnikov rifles pointing at Masih.

“Has Iraqi army sent you here?” One of the boys asked.

“I don’t want to talk to you. If you are here to take me, then take me to my brother Meher. Or else,
get lost.” Masih was about to close the door, when the boys pushed the door open with the nozzles
of the rifles.

“Abu Meher has asked you to come to Fajullah.” The boys took Masih to a waiting car and in the
dark of the night they got into the city. Abu Meher was busy in the open-air conference that is
regularly held under Sharia Law in every city under ISIS rule. The conference is a medium to praise
the ISIS and Sharia Law and to make people aware of it. As Masih came out of the car and went near
Abu Meher, he turned to Masih with a smile and take him to the middle of the stage and addressed
the public, “This is my brother from India. He is a pride to Daesh. He kept our ammunitions in his
construction site and protected us from the authority and then again, he helped us to attack at the
enemy arsenal. He is our Hero.” Everyone in the crowd started praising Masih. Masih could never
believe that he would get any welcome of this stature.

Masih took him inside the camp and made him sit very close to him. He put his hand gently on
Masih’s shoulder and asked, “You are doing a lot for us. Even being a Christian. I would like to offer
you to come under the umbrella of the best religion in the world. Islam.”

Masih kissed Meher’s hands and said, “My name will be Meher Ali.” Masih laughed heartily and
hugged Masih.

Next morning, Meher took Masih to a nearby church and converted him into a Muslim. He wanted
Masih to walk with him closely, exactly the way Murad wanted. Masih became Meher’s right hand
and all the other fighters started calling him ‘Shaqiq (brother) Ali’. Meher trusted Masih with his life.

Masih started going into the private meetings of ISIS. He met Abu Obida for the first time and after
few days, in the mosque he got a glimpse of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He knew the presence of
Baghdadi would mean something serious. He ran into his house and passed on the information to
Murad, “Baghdadi is in the mosque of the town.”
Within 15 minutes of passing on this information, Iraqi air force bombed the mosque but before that
Baghdadi’s convoy left safely and neither of the commander was hurt. The bombarding killed
innocent civilians and most of them were children at an age group of 10-12 years. They gathered in
the mosque to collect delicacies. Masih was standing amidst the smoke and burnt flesh and started
recollecting his considerations. His one information has killed 20 beautiful souls. That night Masih
couldn’t sleep properly.

Next morning Masih was called early to the camp. He ran and found Abu Obida, Abu Meher and
many others in a meeting. He joined the meeting silently.

“They attacked our leader and now we will hit them there where it hurt the most. Plan a suicide
bomb attack in the Secondary Tigris School in Baghdad.” Abu Obida announced with pride. Masih got
insane to hear the plan and immediately wanted to go back and send this information to Murad. He
couldn’t afford to see more dead bodies of little chindren.

Masih was into his thoughts when Obida turned to him and said, “We are planning to take the oil
refineries of Baiji and Tirkit and will seize the oil market of northern Iraq. You will move for Baiji
tomorrow.” Masih couldn’t say anything but nodded.

That night Masih passed on the information to Murad about the attack in the school and moved for
Baiji the next morning. Masih told Murad that they were moving to Baiji to capture the oil refinery.
Murad passed this information to Iraqi forces and an overconfident Iraqi official replied, “We have
more than 2000 soldiers posted at every check post. They can’t get in. Neither in Baiji nor in Tirkit
and never in Mosul.”

But the confidence was shattered by the evening when an Iraqi check post just had 130 soldiers
patrolling and ISIS barged in the city in huge numbers. After the fight of 3 days, they took over Baiji
and another ISIS regiment took over Tirkit at the same time. Iraqi government was horrible shaken in
their dreams. ISIS captured the entire oil field of northern Iraq.

Next morning after the war, when ISIS fighters were still torturing some of the captured Iraqi
soldiers, Masih walking amidst the dead bodies. He walked till the refinery gate when he saw a car
coming towards the camp. He stood there for a while and when the car came and stopped at the
camp gate, three boys came out of it and walked straight to Masih and smiled and asked in Hindi,
“Are you Meher Ali?”

Masih nodded. The boy spoke again, “My name is Adeb and they are my friends Farooq and Imtiaz.”

Masih met Adeb and his friends for the first time. They had informed someone in Syria about their
joining the ISIS, when they were asked to go to Baiji to meet Abu Obida. But when they received
Baiji, and when other had found them to be Indians, they sent them to Masih.

Masih shook hands with them and took them to Abu Meher. During their conversation with Abu
Meher they shared how Indian Muslims were getting butchered by the Hindus in Gujarat, Malegaon,
Muzaffarabad and Kashmir. They couldn’t bear the pain of the Muslims and they wanted to take
revenge of these atrocities.

“Have you heard about the atrocities in Gujarat in 2002? A Muslim pregnant woman was gangraped
and then her stomach was cut open and the baby was taken out on the tip of the sword.” Farooq
closed his eyes in horror while narrating the incident.

“How will you be helpful for us?” Meher asked all of them.
“Train us and we will take Delhi for you. Then we will have our Caliphate there.” Farooq narrated
with pride.

Meher turned to Masih and asked, “Will my Ali be the emperor of that kingdom?” Masih couldn’t
get how to react. He just kept his eyes down and denied. “I just want to stay with you.” Masih
replied.

Meher’s eyes glittered in joy and he took Masih in his arms and patted him saying, “My brother, will
win this world for me.”

The trainings of Adeb, Farooq and Imtiaz were already started and Meher advised Masih to keep
them safe as they would be helpful for their war against the infidels in India. The training, preaching,
monitoring of Sharia Law and sometime guarding the border took 3 months of Masih and every time
he pleaded Murad to take him back, Murad used to reply, “A few days more. Iraq will soon throw
Daesh out of its territory and I will be sending you back to India with pride.”

Masih was getting agitated and one night he decided to run away from the camp. He packed his bags
to just get disappeared, when he heard a call outside the door. He opened the door to find an ISIS
fighter, “Abu Meher is calling you.”

Masih quickly got out of his room and ran to Meher’s room. He was sitting with Adeb, Farooq and
Imtiaz. Meher hugged Masih and made him sit in the middle of the room. He started saying, “There
is good news for you Ali.” Masih was looking blankly at Meher while he continued, “We are attacking
the regiment office of Iraqi forces in Mosul in 4 days.” Masih couldn’t believe his ears. How ISIS could
attack, one of the most powerful Iraqi Army division headquarter. Meher came close to Masih, “And
after this I will send you to India for an attack there. We will take over India and will make you the
emperor of that state.”

Masih listened carefully for a minute and then asked in his mellow voice, “What do I need to do?”

“You need to go to Mosul tomorrow. You will have to do the recce of all the check posts and their
power. I will give you the contacts of the few sleeper cells and you have to activate them. You are
leaving tomorrow early morning.” Meher said.

That night Masih gave every information to Murad and moved to Mosul. Murad supplied the
information to Iraqi forces and Iraqi forces didn’t want to take any chance this time. But when they
tried to double the forces in Mosul, they couldn’t get the tanks and other artillery supports as every
tank had gone at round in the conference of Al Anbar Governorate.

Masih reached Mosul the next day and look around the check posts and other security arrangements
of the Iraqi forces. They had tightened the arrangements, but it was loose enough to stop ISIS if they
attack with full force.

Masih’s next job was to activate all the sleeper cells. While finding every sleeper cell in the city,
Masih found Saqib. As he saw Saqib for the first time, he recognised him as one of the Bangladeshi
labours working with him at the construction site of Mosul. Masih was stunned to see him as the
sleeper agent. “When did you join ISIS?”

The man smiled and replied, “I joined Daesh in Bangladesh and then I came to Iraq. When did you
join? You are not a Muslim even.”

Masih looked at him for some time and replied, “I have converted to Islam.”
Masih had booked a hotel room for himself, from where he called Murad and said that Daesh had
already activated all his sleeper cells in the city and they were going to do something really big.

“What is their plan with the sleeper cells?” Murad asked.

“They didn’t tell me that. May be a suicide bombing again in the headquarter.” Masih replied.

“What do you mean by may be? I want definitive answers.” Murad was getting agitated.

“They don’t tell me everything. I am not Baghdadi. If you think, that I am not capable enough, then
go inside Baiji and take this information yourself.” Masih hung the phone instantly and confined to
bed. His hotel was very near to the headquarter of the 5 th Division of Iraqi forces. While Masih was
still in his dreams of running around the paddy fields of Punjab with Heer, like Hindi movie actors,
the hotel building trembled with a huge shock and debris started falling in places. Masih ran out of
the room to see the smoke coming out of the Iraqi Army Headquarter. There was a chaos all around
the place and by the time they could deal with the jolt of the blast, another suicide bomber exploded
himself near the gate, killing most of the soldiers in rescue.

Masih ran inside the hotel room and called Murad, “Please, take me out of this place. ISIS had
attacked.” But before Murad could try to do anything and Iraqi soldiers could understand the next
shot, convoys of ISIS started barging inside the city and the entire city turned into a battle ground
and in 4 days, the most powerful division of Iraqi army, pussyfooted the entire row and left Mosul at
the hand of Daesh.

ISIS had also never believed that Iraqi forces would leave the post so easily. ISIS captured the entire
city and turned it into a hell. They captured the headquarter, the armouries, police stations, schools
and everything they could find useful. They burnt, crucified and chopped the survived Iraqi soldiers
on the broad streets of Mosul.

On the second day, after Daesh had taken over the city, Obida and Meher came in and established
the Sharia Law in the city. For the first time, Abu Obida recognised Masih’s effort. When Abu Obida
asked Masih to ask for his present in return of what he did in Mosul, Masih instantly replied, “I will
like to take my countrymen out of the place. My mates are there in the construction site. My fellow
labourers.”

Abu Obida looked at Masih for a while and then smiled and said, “Alright. Whatever you say. Take
few of our men and bring them to the dilapidated mall at the corner of the street and asked them to
contact the Indian Embassy.”

Masih didn’t waste a second and ran out with few men to save his colleagues at the construction
site. He reached the site and Manjeet was stunned to see him in the attire of an ISIS fighter. He
asked every labour to board the bus and took them to the dilapidated parking of that weary mall.
Masih asked them to contact the Indian Embassy and their families. He gave the phone to Manjeet
and said, “Call Heer and ask her to go and talk in Delhi to send help for you and don’t tell anything
about me. Whatever you can see, there are stories behind it. Do whatever you can now to save
yourself.”

Masih made sure that ISIS fighters would not misbehave with any of the labourers. Indian Embassy
was not coming for help. Masih himself called Murad and asked for help, when Murad said, “You
need to send them till Erbil. No officials can take the risk to go into Mosul now. Iraqi forces will not
allow us.”
He started thinking a lot about a plan to take these men out of Mosul and when he got a definitive
plan to drop them at Mosul borders, he went to the mall and to his horror, he found no one to be
there and few hours after he got the news that all his brothers were killed by ISIS. That time he
didn’t know that Manjeet had escaped the fate.

He went straight to Abu Obida, “I requested you to not to kill any of my men. Why you did this?”

Abu Obida hugged Masih gently and whispered, “Those were not your men, they were infidels.
Enemy of Allah. You were one of them and now you have got the right path of Allah to pursue. We
have plans for you. We are promoting you as the emperor of South-East Asia. Hoist the ISIS flag all
over the place and rule. Baghdadi has himself congratulated you on this.”

“What you want me to do, now?” Masih was curious and anxious.

“You were one of them, and you can prove that. Now we will make you the lone survivor of this
shootout and an innocent Indian labour will go back to India with this horrific plan.” Obida replied.

“What is the plan?” Masih asked again.

“You need to take care of finances for few days and then you would be given the duty to plan a serial
bomb blast in India.” Obida’s words shook Masih from inside. He thought of denying but how he
could. Masih got the opportunity, not to attack his own country but to save his homeland. He
agreed.

They dressed Masih and the incident and made Masih reach the town of Erbil and Masih got into the
hands of Iraqi soldiers.

Present:

Masih informed Murad that Abu Obida was visiting India with his plans of the blast and Murad felt it
to be a huge moment to nab Obida in India. Manjunath never felt it was a good idea to keep their
plans going and just to wait for Abu Obida to arrive. He kept his versions in the MEA and said, “I
think we are extremely risking it. Abu Obida may come to India or may not, but his bombers are
already here. So, to nab Abu Obida we are playing with the lives of the innocent. What if, Masih is
not giving us exact information? What if the blast happened even before we could interpret?”

There was a moment of silence in the meeting room, when Murad cleared his throat and said, “Abu
Obida is responsible to capture the entire Oil refineries of northern Iraq, which is one of the main oil
supplies for India. If we can get Abu Obida, that will break the backbone of ISIS in Syria and it will be
an excellent opportunity to take Hit and Fajbullah and Tirkit, back from ISIS. Moreover, we won’t get
any better chance to get Obida. Everything is in my control. RAW is keeping an eye on Masih’s
movements. He is under control. I think we must go for the unknown this time.”

The ministry decided after a brief meeting that ministry would not interfere till the Obida is not
coming in India. Murad was happy and contended and started his operation and asked Masih to
make sure that Obida is coming to India.

Murad started checking the movements of NTJ in Sri Lanka and Kerala. But he could not sense
anything abnormal in terms of physical or monetary movement. The night after the meeting,
Manjunath and Murad were having couple of drinks together when Manjunath asked, “There are
few questions that is still bothering me. Why NTJ wants to do something in India? If ISIS is helping
NTJ, then what is the need of Obida to come here in India? Why the leader of NTJ Mohammad
Cassim is still not moving?”

“Everything will be answered.” Murad assured and concentrated in his drinks, even though he knew
that he also had these questions in his minds. But the questions will make things complicated and for
the time being, Murad just wanted to follow the trail.

Masih was sleeping in his room in Nepal, when he got a call from Iraq, Abu Obida was online, and he
shared the dates and location of the attack. Masih immediately called Murad and passed on the
dates, “There are planning to attack on Easter Sunday. The places are Church of St. Francis of Asisi,
Goa, Se Cathedral, Goa,  St. George’s Forane Church, Kerala, St. Francis CSI Church, Kerala,
Santhome Cathedral, Tamil Nadu, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta. I am responsible to foresee the
attack in Calcutta and Saqib of Bangladesh will be the suicide bomber there.”

The very next morning, Masih departed for Calcutta and Saqib also came to India along with Imtiaz.
Imtiaz took a train for Goa and Saqib went to Calcutta and contacted Masih. Masih booked a room
for Saqib in Park Circus area of Calcutta. Park Circus, a Muslim ghetto and an ideal place for Saqib
and Masih to hide.

In Iraq, the heavy gun fight was going on for days to retrieve Mosul from the ISIS and amidst all
these, Steve, Rashford and their team got their hands on the boys of Zubeida. Zubeida’s boys gave
them the location of the camp where Zubeida was kept. The forces started moving towards the
camp and before they could reach there, Abu Obida left the camps and travelled to Nepal.

The Iraqi forces and Kurdish Army attacked the camp of ISIS and retrieved Zubeida. Her condition
was very serious. She was repeatedly raped and tortured and kept naked all most all days. She lost
her mental stability and denied recognising anyone. She was taken to a hospital in Erbil but couldn’t
say anything to the investigators.

“Nobody can meet her for three days at the least. She was repeatedly raped and tortured. Her
genitals tissues had been completely damaged, and she is in great shock. She needs to be in
complete rest.” Doctor informed.

Murad was a bit contended to get Zubeida back, alive. But when he saw her picture and shown it to
Manjunath, Murad told him, “I hope she dies soon. Or else she has to remember this torture all her
life.” As Manjunath and Murad were conversing, Masih called and said, “Abu Obida is in India and he
is going to meet the leader of NTJ, Cassim, tomorrow in Cochin. The Pearl café is the address of their
meeting.” He stopped for a while and then added, “Kindly, get him and finish this issue tomorrow. I
need to go home, now.” Masih hung the phone. Murad and Manjunath departed for Cochin.

Chapter 8: Shadows in the Meadows

A team of RAW was waiting at the Pearl Café for Abu Obida to arrive. A sniper was fixed at a nearby
building and other team members were scattered all around the market in disguise. Mohammad
Cassim was also on the wanted list of Sri Lankan police. He was the leader of NTJ and had been
involved in many cases of murder of Buddhist monks, vandalising historic Buddhist properties and
instigating violence against the Buddhists.
RAW had already traced Cassim a day before the meeting and kept an eye on him all this while.
Cassim arrived at the café at around 10’o clock in the morning and took the end table. He ordered
for a Café Americano with some milk on side, took a Malayali newspaper and started enjoying his
morning patiently.

Murad was standing opposite to the café, inside a jewellery shop, in the disguise of selecting
jewellery for his wife. Manjunath was at the end of the road and smoking cigarette and suddenly he
could see a car was approaching the busy market area. “Everyone alert. White Maruti approaching
the café.” Manjunath blabbered over the phone.

All the units got alert and as the car stopped near the café, a tall man appeared out of it and even
from a distance Murad could make that to be Abu Obida.

“What did you see, Murad?” Manjunath asked over the line.

“Its him.” Murad said and went out of the jewellery shop. Everyone was alert and started moving
towards the café gently.

Abu Obida went inside and joined Cassim and ordered for a Darjeeling Tea. He turned to Cassim and
asked, “Why did you call me? What is the urgency before a week?”

“I didn’t ask you to meet, you asked to discuss about the planning.” Cassim replied and before Obida
could figure out the confusion, RAW officials surrounded the table. There was an open window
beside Cassim and he jumped out of it and started running towards the busy market street when a
young officer traced him and started chasing him. Cassim turned and shot the officer twice and he
collapsed on the ground. Sniper had his aim on Cassim and as Murad’s voice beeped in his earpiece,
‘Shoot’, he took the shot and Cassim was dead.

Abu Obida was nabbed at the spot and was taken to the safe house in Bangalore. He was thoroughly
interrogated and couldn’t bear the torture for more than a day and blabbered the plan out. “We are
planning the blast in six Indian churches on the Easter Sunday. Six suicide bombers are Saqib,
Farooq, Imtiaz, Adeb, Adil and Ali. They all are hiding in different places of the country. Ali has
managed everything and once you get him, you get all the other five. His name is Meher Ali or Harjit
Masih.”

Murad came out of the interrogation when he got a message in his phone from Steve, ‘Zubeida
regained consciousness – safe and sound.’ Everything fell into places. Cassim was killed, Obida was
arrested and Murad had the whereabouts of all the six suicide bombers. He called Masih and said,
“Obida is in our custody. I need the address of the rest of the six attackers and then you can go
home.”

Masih shared the address and Murad asked him to station himself at RAW HQ in Delhi. Saqib was
arrested from Calcutta, Adeb and Imtiaz were arrested from Goa and Farooq was arrested on the
way to Cochin. They all were taken to Delhi and Murad identified them. Murad and Masih came out
of the black room and Murad hugged Masih and said, “Whatever you did, India will remember you
forever.”

Masih smiled and said, “I want to go back to my own village. But all the country thinks that I am a
traitor and I have been with ISIS and killed my brothers. Please, bring me again on the national
television to prove my innocence.”

Murad thought for a while and then said, “Do you want to meet Heer?”
“I want to go home.” Masih replied.

“Let’s go and grab a drink.” Murad took Masih to a nearby bar and offered him a costly scotch. Masih
was not interested in any of these. He wanted to go back to his family.

“I have not been in my house for long.” Masih had moisture in his eyes.

“Masih, I can’t put you on national television and make you a hero. ISIS had its members in India,
and it won’t take much effort of them to come and kill you. We have to keep you safe.” Murad
suggested.

Masih didn’t speak for a minute and took a long sip from the peg and turned to Murad, “Is it that
much or you can’t make an ordinary common man a hero?”

Murad didn’t know what to say. He tried to cultivate his words and replied Masih, “Look, there are
many aspects of one single thing. One, is your safety and two, RAW works under a protocol, at least
for the world. And ministry suddenly can’t keep you on the table saying that you helped us doing
that and you were working with us. And all these days we have kept the country in darkness.”

“Is there really any difference between you and those people who are fighting like a dog in Syria?”
Masih was extremely angry.

“Don’t be an emotional fool, Masih. Do you have any idea, how many agents do we have in Pakistan,
Balochistan, Afghanistan, Singapore? Many of them dies even without getting to see their families.
They stay in a foreign country with unknown people and with some different identity all their lives.
They don’t complain.” Murad told.

“I am not an agent and I don’t wanna be. I am a poor labour from Punjab and my name is Harjit
Masih and I want to go back home.” Masih left the chair and started going and stopped in the mid-
way. “I know what is lurking on my fate. Two bullets inside my body. Either from RAW or from them.
But, before that, if you can then let me meet my love once. My Heer.” Masih marched out of the bar.
Murad kept on sitting in silence and in his own thoughts.

Murad told every bit of his conversation with Masih to Manjunath, when he advised Murad to
deport him to a foreign land or else Masih might again go to the press and blabber anything. “You
should make him meet that girl once and send him to Dubai. If he wants to take that girl, send both
of them together.”

Murad thought of the idea and called Heer and said about Masih’s bravery. “Your man is really very
brave. We can’t let him inside the village for now, but he wants to meet you. If you can come to
Delhi, then we will book a suit for you in JW Marriott.”

Heer agreed and arrived in Delhi the very next day. Murad took Masih to the hotel room, where
Heer was already waiting for him. Murad made them sit together and helped himself with a chair. He
sat in front of the couple, “You know, since I am posted in Baghdad my mom died, I couldn’t come
home. Then my dad died, I couldn’t come even then. Then my girlfriend got married and I drank all
night in a bar in Baghdad and slept with a lone Iraqi woman. But before they posted me in Iraq, they
were not sure because I have a Khan behind my name. This is the reality.”

Masih was listening very carefully while Murad continued, “We have thought something for both of
you. I am going to send you to Dubai and give you a job there. I will take care of you parents all their
life and if you want to take Heer and your family along with you, then we are fine with it.” As Masih
heard that, he burst out in tears and sat on Murad’s feet. Murad made him stand and said, “You will
have a nice life there. There are many heroes in RAW who don’t even get this, and they don’t
bother.”

Murad hugged Masih and went out of the room, while leaving Masih and Heer in their own privacy.
Masih gently embraced in his arms and they made love all night. Masih was contended and couldn’t
sleep all night. He was staring at the blank roof of the hotel room. He turned towards Heer, who was
peacefully sleeping beside him. She was looking beautiful. He ran his fingers down her spine and she
smiled in her dreams. He went to close to her, kissed her on her lips and whispered in her ears, “I
will take you to Dubai very soon.” They slept tightly all night and with the first light of the morning,
Murad and Manjunath dropped Masih at the airport. Heer was also there. Masih dissolved inside the
humongous crowd of the airport. The airport clock was showing 19 th April 2019 and the time was
10’o clock in the morning.

Murad dropped Heer at ISBT Delhi and handed her some money to be given to Masih’s parents.
Heer went back to Punjab with the feeling that she would leave the country soon and would go back
to her love and Murad took the flight for Baghdad.

As Murad landed in Baghdad, the first thing he did was to visit Zubeida. He went to the hospital and
met Zubeida. Zubeida was looking very weak and her eyes were describing the pain that she had
gone through. Even though, the zeal to fight was still there in her. Murad sat beside her and touched
her gently and asked, “How are you?”

Zubeida feebly smiled and said, “Will report back to you in the week.” They both laughed. Zubeida
had the nerve of steel or else no other human being would have sustained the torture. When she
was recovered, she had multiple injuries, her collar bone was fractured, she had injuries in her spine,
anus and genitals and she had cigarette burnt marks all over her body.

“Abu Obida is in the custody of RAW.” Murad informed Zubeida.

“Abu Meher even wanted that.” Zubeida confused Murad with this phrase.

“What do you mean?” Murad asked.

“One night, Abu Meher took me to his room and raped me and dropped me on the cold floor. I was
lying there when few other ISIS men came and congratulated for being the new president and from
their words, I could decipher that it was ISIS’s plan to send Abu Obida to India and get arrested as a
RAW official was helping them.” Zubeida took a deep breath and continued, “I have seen them
discussing about the anti-Muslim riots of 2014 in Sri Lanka. One day one man with Indian attributes
came in and was talking in Sinhala language. Meher asked him to take money from Masih. He was a
business as when he was raping me, he was also attending his phone calls and was talking business
in English.”

“What kind of business?” Murad asked.

“Oil, may be.” Zubeida replied.

Everything was so confusing for Murad. He ran back to his room, made a cup of coffee and sat in
silence for a while and then took out the copy of the intercepts which RAW gathered from Nepal. He
spread out the copies of messages on his table and started studying it attentively again. And after
drinking 8 cups of coffee and staying awake all night, the information Murad retrieved, shook every
stone beneath his feet.
Murad instantly called Manjunath who was still in his dreams, “Take out the international funding
links of NTJ and find out if any business house had sent them any money recently.” NTJ was a kind of
an organisation who get funded from many Muslim businessmen all over the world. Manjunath
cracked down every statement of NTJ and after a research of around 4 hours, they found that a
businessman from Kerala had sent some money to NTJ in 4 instalments, the sum total of which was
the exact amount that was looted from the mint.

“Get this businessman.” Murad ordered. RAW found his house and as they got in there, they found
the entire family is sitting tightly on the sofa.

“Surrender yourself and let go of your family.” A RAW official ordered. The man his family didn’t
move. The officials started getting near to them and as they were close to the sofa, the man
shouted, “Takbir.”

“Allah-u-Akbar.” And the bomb exploded, killing 5 RAW officials and the entire family of the
businessman.

Murad heard the news and didn’t want to take any chance. He contacted the Home Ministry and Sri
Lanka, “There could be a probable suicide bombing attack in Sri Lanka. Location couldn’t be
confirmed but it must be in the churches.”

Sri Lankan tightened the security in the churches, and despite of having every intels, the first bomb
exploded at 8.25 AM at Saint Anthony’s church and followed by the seven blasts and became the
largest terrorist attack on Sri Lankan soil.

Murad called Masih after he got the news of the blast, but his phone was not reachable. Murad
asked his men in Dubai to find Masih and when his men raided the house, Masih was not there.

“Masih is missing.” Murad informed Manjunath.

Manjunath went straight to Ade, Farooq and Imtiaz and interrogated them once more. “Who was
the RAW agent who was helping you?”

Adeb said, “He played an amazing circus with you all. We have seen the news today. The infidels
were burnt alive.” He had smile in his face. “Your men, Harjit Masih has helped us with everything
and you kept on following his trails.”

Manjunath ran out of the room and informed Murad about Harjit. Murad had nothing to do more.
They were humiliated in their own backyard. After 3 days of the blast when Sri Lankan agency were
trying to normalise everything, a video appeared on the website handled by ISIS.

A masked man appeared in front of the television and said, “This is just the first blow on the infidels
of South-East Asia. We have taken the revenge of attacks on Muslims in Sri Lanka, India, New
Zealand and many parts of India and this will continue till the time you don’t leave our home to us.”
The eyes behind the mask was clearly indicating Murad that it was none other than Harjit Masih
himself. The news was circulated all over the world media as the acceptance video of ISIS second-
hand command Meher Ali.

Murad was silently watching the news with a peg of scotch in his hands.

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