The Movement had intended for the Operation Ghar party to arrive in Anantnag quietly and well-rested. But at Charar-i-Sharief they were press-ganged into another man’s operation. In Anantnag, Sikander became frantic on hearing this news. It was already mid-March. The hostages should have been seized by now, yet every morning he read in the papers of the siege hardening.
The frozen spring thawed into early summer, and still there was no let-up. Sikander was about to send word that a new team should be sent from Pakistan, when in the early hours of 10 May 1995, two explosions rocked Noor-ud-din’s shrine. He saw the footage for himself, broadcast live by local and international TV channels that had gathered on a neighbouring hillside to watch events. It showed how the ancient wooden edifice crackled and smoked before flames licked through it, panicking the Indian security forces that ringed it, who tried to douse the flames, at the same time keeping a lookout for Mast Gul and his men. But the HM fighters never emerged, and the soldiers failed to extinguish the fire. By dusk the security forces were surveying a dismal scene: more than two thousand ancient homes destroyed, along with the shrine itself. The footage was broadcast everywhere.
A powerful story spun its way across continents that the Indian Army had deliberately torched the shrine in order to smoke out the HM cell. This was vehemently denied by India, which insisted that the militants holed up inside had done the deed themselves. However, given their track record in Kashmir, the Indian security forces were now plausibly framed. Almost as demoralising, Mast Gul and most of his men had slipped away through the choking smoke. Abu Jindal, the leader of the al Faran kidnap party, had not been so lucky. He had been captured, and a third of his men killed. Even before commencing Operation Ghar, the brothers were leaderless and down to sixteen.
Two weeks later Mast Gul emerged triumphant, staging an impromptu press conference on 26 May from a new hideout, in which a senior HM commander presented him with a 100,000-rupee reward for his ‘heroic deeds’ in escaping the siege at which ‘India had brazenly levelled one of Islam’s most historic sites’. Only later did he confess to supporters in Peshawar that it had in fact been his boys who struck the match. ‘I did what India could not,’ he said, recounting how they had poured thick black lines of gunpowder around Noor-ud-din’s shrine before setting it alight.
Sikander’s bile rose as he read about Mast Gul’s speech. He knew he had to come up with a salvage plan. Operation Ghar was now three months behind schedule, and had lost sight of its original targets: the foreign engineers. By the time the depleted kidnap team made it to the rendezvous point near Anantnag, it would be June. They would be fractious, exhausted and rudderless. Sikander took a decision. They needed to settle on easier prey, he told his comrades, forgetting all of his previous reservations. The summer trekking paths around Pahalgam would soon be attracting a trickle of foreign tourists. He had done this once before, he told his men. Through gritted teeth, he said it would be as easy as picking walnuts.
Sitting on the riverbank, her journal open on her lap, Jane Schelly glanced up at the two Kashmiri guides squatting by the stove. Vegetables and rice again, she thought, her heart sinking. Bashir and Sultan were squabbling. Something was wrong. This was their last night together, and if she was honest, she was looking forward to saying goodbye. She was grateful for all the humping of kit, the cooking and the renditions of Kashmiri love songs, and even the convoluted accounts of local lore and the circular stories that started but never ended. However, there had been a subtle but significant shift in relations earlier in the day as a result of the argument over the ‘snow-blocked’ pass. ‘I now realised that I no longer trusted them,’ Jane recalled. That was the nub of it. Or maybe it was just her tooth, which continued to ache. ‘Note to self: call the dentist when we get back,’ she remembered thinking as she watched Bashir lecturing Sultan on the best way to dice onions.
She shivered in the coolness of the dusk and thought about going to the tent to get an extra layer of clothing, but her feet were throbbing from the long day’s trek. It was just past 5 p.m. on 4 July, and the sun had already sunk behind the ridgeline, leaving the campsite several degrees colder than when they had arrived. Instead, she wrapped her fleece more tightly around herself and went back to her journal, to finish describing the aborted attempt to cross the Sonarmas Pass.
Then, an indeterminate flickering drew her eye. Struggling to focus in the fading light, she thought she saw a group of figures approaching. They appeared from a clump of pine trees. Had they been spying on her, watching the camp, she wondered. She didn’t have time to think about it now, as they were heading straight for her, walking and then trotting. It was the antelope and the lion, a moment of precognition.
Trying not to stare, Jane estimated that there were a dozen of them, dressed in an assortment of long robes and shawls, like medieval warriors. Some wore dark indigo turbans, others flat woollen caps, and their hair and beards were long, their skin dark and unwashed. As they drew closer she saw that some were wearing military-style green-and-khaki tactical vests. For a moment she thought they might be mountain police, but although she and Don had passed the occasional army patrol, she had never seen men like this. She looked about, but there was no one else around, just her, Don, Bashir and Sultan. She glanced over at Don, still down at the river. He had seen the strangers too, and nodded down at his soapy hands as if to say, ‘Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.’ Don would work this out, she reassured herself.
As the men neared, Jane saw they were stained by sweat and dirt, as if they had been out in the wilds for many days. Beneath their shawls they carried rifles and coils of ammunition. Were they some kind of irregulars, a part-time government unit deployed in the mountains? One of them called out to Sultan, who looked up, utensils clattering to the ground as the man barked questions in what Sultan recognised as Pashto-accented Urdu, his language and tone instantly marking him out to any local Kashmiri as a foreign mujahid from the Afghan borders. Sultan tentatively answered, ‘Angresi,’ the Urdu word used for all foreigners, regardless of where they come from. The armed men moved closer, and motioned for Don and Jane to go over to their tent. Jane stared hard at the one who seemed to be the leader, but he remained emotionless, almost aloof, his face swathed in a rough indigo-coloured scarf. She looked over at Sultan and Bashir. Had she been right to doubt them, she wondered. ‘Have we been set up?’ she asked herself. The gunman gesticulated with his rifle. They were to be silent. Jane did her best to remain calm, although a rage was rising within her. Was this the reason Bashir and Sultan had been so eager to come to the Lower Camp, because they were accessories in this robbery or whatever it was? As she watched the men quiz the guides further, she thought about her money and travellers’ cheques that were lying inside the tent along with Don’s camera. She needed to get in there and conceal everything.
Bashir came running over. ‘Passports,’ he urged, sweating, and with a panicked look in his eyes. ‘Who are they?’ Don muttered under his breath. Bashir didn’t reply. Seeing the foreigners hesitate, the leader’s eyes settled on Jane and Don. ‘Just give me, please,’ Bashir insisted, thrusting out his hand. ‘He seemed genuinely afraid,’ Jane recalled. As she retrieved the passports from their tent, she considered pushing their cash inside one of the sleeping bags, but decided against it. She sat back down, and saw an itinerant gujjar stroll into the camp, carrying a basket of flat lavash bread, an incongruous moment of normality given the events of the past few minutes. Seeing the armed party a few seconds too late, the gujjar was unable to beat a retreat. He flinched as one of them beckoned him over, then grabbed a handful of lavash and stuffed it roughly into his vest. ‘This will be a test,’ thought Jane. When the gunman reached inside his kurta and produced some money to pay, she felt relieved. He was not a robber after