Chapter-1: Devil’s Filth

16th December, 2013 - 20:00 local time

Arambam Kamei became passionate about single malt whiskey since the time he had his first sip of good stuff. He ensured that he got the best single malts in his parties. He was well-known for hosting grand parties where best wine and women were available in plenty. But unlike others he preferred to keep his guest list short and invite only those who were close to him. Today’s party had just begun and he was enjoying his drink with some of his powerful friends sitting on terrace of his villa in outskirts of Chittagong. Most of them had made their fortune in less than legal ways by dealing in drugs, arms and humans. Their common connection was their animosity towards India for reasons varying from commercial to religious. Some of the members were officers in Bangladesh Army. Life was good for Kamei and he thought he deserved it for all the hard work he had done all these years. After spending time in jungles of Manipur under constant threat of being hunted by Indian security forces he felt he had earned his luxurious lifestyle.

Surrounded by a thick growth of trees, villa’s parking lot was filled with premium SUVs of different makes. Armed security guards of guests were milling around and discussing what idle men usually discuss. All of a sudden there was a series of ear-shattering blasts near car park. Before anybody could understand anything, security guards started dropping on ground. While some of them had dropped down due to their proximity to blasts, many of them fell due to impact of 7.62mm bullets to their heads and torsos. Smoke grenades came out of the blue and covered entire compound with smoke.

Bewildered guests and surviving guards took out their weapons and started firing wildly. Their bullets hit no targets as there weren’t any. Intended recipients of those bullets were either lying prone in the woods or on the trees. Firing stopped as abruptly as it had started as those firing could not find any targets and were now thinking about what happened. Guests from terrace started barking orders to their guards to start their vehicles. It was at that very moment that shots rang out from woods and took out couple of guests. Almost at same time, figures clad in standard issue fatigues of Bangladesh Navy Special Forces (SWADS) armed with HK-416 rifles, wearing gas masks and night vision gear emerged from the woods firing towards remaining guards. There was not much left for them on the terrace as snipers had done their job well.

Marine troops with HK416 and G36 rifles. (Image courtesy: www.militaryphotos.net)

Only three subjects were intentionally left alive with shots to their limbs to immobilize them. In next few minutes, one team of assaulters climbed to terrace while another went for Kamei’s laptop and safe. One of the survivors was trying to take out his cell phone with a wounded arm. One of the assaulters named Yusuf Mohammed gave him a solid kick on face with a comment “Dear General, you and your friends have sold Bangladesh to the highest bidder. You have sold our mothers, sisters and wives to brothels and are enjoying the riches. I have all the reasons to kill you, so you better behave yourself.” Those words spoken in native Bangla had such a ring of finality to it that brave General Khalid Hasan of Bangladesh Rifles did not even move a muscle. Yusuf looked towards his leader who nodded. He went towards Kamei who was lying in pool of his own blood after being shot in left thigh and right kneecap. He pulled out his pistol and shot Kamei’s left kneecap. Kamei who was reason behind so many deaths was now feeling the pain he had inflicted on others all these years. Yusuf said in native Bangla “We, the Sons of Bangladesh hereby send you back to Allah’s court, for he’ll judge you for the crime committed against my country and her children”. It was repeated again in heavily accented English and then he fired two shots in Kamei’s head.

By this time the third survivor Omar Ubaid, who happened to be involved heavily in human trafficking started to plead to spare his life. This was the last that General Hasan saw before he fell unconscious due to blood loss. Omar was carefully shot by Yusuf to ensure that he does not bleed heavily and could survive for some time. One of the assaulters checked for vital signs on General. He was still alive. He gave a ‘thumbs up’ and all of them left as quickly as they had appeared taking with them Kamei’s laptop and documents from his safe. When jeeps and trucks carrying troops local police and military garrison arrived on the scene, all they could find were charred remains of SUVs and corpses of some very powerful men. Omar and General Khalid were rushed to nearest hospital and a mop up of villa was ordered by local military commander. Those in the vicinity of the area were asked to forget about everything that had happened at the villa.

Few hours after this incident, Gregory Carver of CNN, Julia Trent of BBC and Prakash Roy of NDTV were on air reading the email and showing video clips that they had received. That email rested responsibility of “cleaning devil’s filth littered in Bangladesh” on shoulders of erstwhile unknown group called ‘Sons of Bangladesh’. Their agenda declared that they were a patriotic Bangladeshi group formed of common people who had decided to stop foreign elements from milking their country and pushing Bangladeshi people into bottomless pit of poverty and disease. It proclaimed that this was their first operation and from now on they would target those who acted against interests of Bangladesh without giving any consideration to their ethnicity. Immediately afterwards was live telecast of a press conference summoned by Bangladeshi Prime Minister. He conveyed that there was no such incident and this was just a ploy to foment unrest in the country.

Governments across the globe were startled at this incident. It was surprising that a non-government organization had conducted an operation with military precision and eliminated so many powerful men. But then there were a few who saw the news on TV and gave a cunning smile for it was their handiwork. Who were these men would never be known to the world thought Manish Joshi. He switched off TV in his office and called up his wife of 20 years. Manish informed her that he’ll take her out to eat ‘chaat’ at Chandni Chowk just like they used to during early years of marriage. She deserved at least that much for making sacrifices all these years. After all his work involved spending lots of time away from family and then there were things which he could never talk about. He was happy not only because he was taking his wife out, but also because mysterious Rustom had struck. Elimination of Kamei and his cronies had struck a blow to separatist movement in North-East India. Rustom had promised more and Manish was willing to wait. While leaving office, he could not help but feel proud of the organization he worked for. Located at a non-descript building, its name betrayed its function. Named Research and Analysis Wing or RAW for short, it was India’s topmost intelligence agency and he was one of the best spies RAW had ever produced.