Memon Memories

As Yakub Memon’s hanging triggered a debate across India, various Kashmiris knowing Mumbai’s Tiger after 1993 refreshed their memories telling Bilal Handoo how Delhi pre-empted his terror plans

Memon Family

A summer before guns rattled, a couple from Bombay was in Kashmir for vacations. They met a Kashmiri family who mesmerised them with their hospitality. Before leaving, the couple promised to return valley next time in their big brother’s chopper. As militancy took over, no chopper landed, but memories remained.

Many years later, a hardcore militant from Srinagar’s Aloochibagh running roof-tin shop at Hari Singh High Street was on a secret meeting with a Mumbai man figuring in India’s ‘most wanted’ list. Karachi hosted this bonhomie between Kashmir’s Hilal Baig and Mumbai’s Tiger Memon. The objective was to devise a strategy that would redefine the combat tactics of Kashmiri militants against Delhi.

But before that could have happened, Hilal Baig had floated Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front (JKSLF) at a time when Kashmir’s pumped up armed camp was fast splitting into small groups. “Big bosses in Pakistan backing the movement were at peace with this split,” said a former JKSLF commander, who renounced militancy long back for a peaceful life. “Their idea was to float around 150 small groups to confuse India through multiple engagements. But the idea backfired as it created gulf and led to group clashes.” Out of this split, people saw likes of Mushtaq Zargar floating al Umar, Mushtaq ul Islam emerging with Hizbullah and others with their own armed groups.

Amid this divided house, Baig-led JKSLF (thought as JKLF’s sister organisation in Muzaffarabad) wasn’t on same page with Ashfaq Majeed-led pro-freedom militant group, JKLF. “The two groups weren’t as such hostile to each other,” the erstwhile commander continued. “They just believed in different mode of action.” As actions made statements, people realised that Baig was no ordinary guerrilla making rounds in Kashmir with AK-47.

Hilal Baig

“He (Baig) had big plans,” said Baig’s former aide. “He was illiterate, but a born-militant gifted with military mindset.” To display his combat skills, Baig, a man of few words, created what many called Kashmir’s first “terror squad” he named “death squad”. It would barge into paramilitary bunkers, slit throats and run away.

Later it indulged in high-profile kidnappings. The abduction of the erstwhile vice chancellor of Kashmir University, Mushir-ul-Haq was carried by them. But perhaps what made  Baig different  from his contemporaries was his operation codenamed “Crush India”, the brainchild of  Tiger Memon backed by big bosses in Pakistan, said Baig’s former aide.

Some 20 years later, an Australian whistleblower Julian Assange became a global sensation for leaking classified diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks. One US cable (C-NA7-00565), revealed how in April 1991, Hilal Baig persuaded by Pakistan’s inter-services intelligence division (ISI) renamed JKSLF as Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen (IUM). Baig’s new outfit had adopted a fierce modus operandi, tasked to carry out “militant attacks” outside J&K. “The motive was to hurt the enemy in his own backyard,” Baig’s former comrade said. “And the message was loud and clear: ‘Hit enemy’s raw nerve.’ ”

Tiger Memon

On March 12, 1993, 13 serial blasts shook Mumbai sending India into mourning. The attacks were most destructive in Indian history: 257 dead, 713 injured. Perpetrators were speedily identified. One among them was Ibrahim Abdul Razzak Memon aka Tiger Memon, the man punched hard on his face later that year by a Kashmiri boxer-turned-militant, Usman Majeed.

A Congressman’s son, Majeed graduated in Humanities before picking up the gun. He was JKSLF’s Baramulla boss. His ‘good militant’ image saw his detention term melting away in 1992 spring in exchange for four civilians held hostage by his group.

But he was no longer the same man once he stepped out after 26 days detention. Weary of militancy, he wanted to be a pacifist. “A lot of people within the organisation were beginning to feel the same way,” said Majeed, the incumbent Bandipora lawmaker. “Many of the cadre (JKSLF) used to complain that while they were getting killed, our leaders, Hilal Baig and Sajjad Kenu, were safely sitting in Pakistan.” Some intelligence brain armoured with “militant psycho profiles” was working behind the curtains to create this mindset in Baig’s Ikhwan. It was a dormant stage before a full-blown radical dissent fanned out in Kashmir.

Usman Majeed

With this “radical” mindset propping up, Majeed received Baig’s command: “Meet me in Dhaka. We are planning something very big.”

The message came a month after serial bombs rocked Mumbai. A disillusioned militant from Bandipora, Majeed, went ahead and met Baig in Bangladesh. The duo eventually left for Karachi after clearing some security hiccups. In Dhaka itself, Baig informed Majeed: “Look, I have come in contact with Tiger Memon. He needs us to train his men for a series of eight bombings to be carried out in coming Ramzan.” For Majeed, the news was ‘chilling’ because he was changing fast.

But in Pakistan, raining money hooked Majeed’s attention. Soon Ikhwan’s Muzaffarabad office came up, closer to Majeed’s residence equipped with gym. In that gym, Tiger met Majeed by fall 1993 and insisted on a short sparring bout. Majeed ended up punching hard on Tiger’s face. But the punch felt like ‘love bite’, as it brought the two sports enthusiasts closer.

1993: Karachi meeting between Hilal, Tiger, Usman and others.

Amid this Majeed-Memon “camaraderie”, Baig was busy creating a network of his agents in Calcutta, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Kathmandu, and Dhaka. But certain arrests threw the plan haywire. Somehow, Baig’s aide said, Delhi felt Bombay-type blasts could took place elsewhere.

Things turned sour for Tiger in Pakistan as well. After his younger brother, Yakub visited India with bagful of evidences, ISI blamed him. With the result, he was stripped of all support. Tiger immediately disappeared from the scene until resurfacing in January 1995 when he met Baig, Majeed and others one last time for dinner. “By then, Tiger was back,” said Majeed, carrying a ‘worst image in Kashmir for his Delhi connections’ as per US cable. “He was negotiating with Hilal and Sajjad, to set up the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front (JKIF).” This new outfit was the brainchild of larger political game plan. Its members having houses, guides in Nepal and Gujarat were tasked to operate in northern and western India, Majeed claimed.

Back home, India’s top spymaster (then India’s Henry Kissinger, now PM Modi’s National Security Advisor), Ajit Doval was setting stage to launch Kashmir’s anti-hero. Doval was in talks with JKSLF militant, a former folklore singer from North Kashmir’s Hajin, Kuka Parray, for starting counter-insurgent militia in valley. Once Baig sniffed the scandal, he along with Sajjad returned home to set his house in order. But it was no cakewalk to pacify his ‘radicalised’ cadre, taken into confidence by Doval and Parray.

Once Baig learned about Parray’s shoddy deal, he visited Hajin to neutralise “renegade ringleader”. “But somehow, Parray learned about Baig’s intentions and managed to give him a slip,” said Baig’s former comrade. “If only that day Baig would have his catch, then Ikhwan might have died from instant heartbreak at its very birth.”

As it couldn’t happen, Ikhwan bifurcated. Parray led Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon and Baig retained the original title. For Baig, this radical shift of the group he created was intolerable. But on face of mounting militia at behest of counter-insurgency grid, Baig could only adopt, wait and watch approach.

By 1995, his close confidante, Sajjad Kenu (JKIF’s head) was arrested. He escaped in a jailbreak only to be slain by Special Operations Group (SOG) on January 8, 1996. The same SOG later killed Hilal along with his close aide, Khursheed Ahmad in summer 1996 at his Dalgate hideout, where Baig was hiding with his teenage wife, lapping their month old daughter.

Before receiving Baig’s badly mutilated body incised with name “Hilal” on his back next morning, his wife Zubaida was interrogated by SOG men. “That night,” she said, “they (cops) kept asking about some Haider.” Zubaida had never heard this name in her fifteen month long marriage with Hilal. The question was: who was this Haider, whose search had accidently solved SOG’s hunt for its top catch, Hilal Baig, whose face was seen only by his close aides.

Mystery over Haider persisted until two men tasked to do fact-finding tracked down JKIF’s phone number (445699) in Pakistan’s capital on September 4, 1997. Upon dialling, one of them heard a voice, repeatedly asking: “Are you sure, this call isn’t being taped?”

“No, not at all! We just want to have a meeting to know your story.”

“If so, I will speak more clearly,” the man hung up the phone before asking the duo to meet him at a specific address.

After dusting miles, the two fact-finders believed gathering information for Pantagon reached Islamabad’s (Pakistan) westernmost suburbs where the group’s house was tucked into a narrow alley. They were ushered into the house by one Dr Haider, who introduced himself as JKIF’s deputy and identified another man in the house, Bilal Baig as the outfit’s chairman.

But the question remained, whether Dr Haider originally hailing from Baramulla was the same Haider hunted by Kashmir’s SOG? A medical doctor by profession, he indeed turned out to be Zubaida’s mystery man.

Dr Haider told the visiting duo how JKSLF gradually metamorphosed into JKIF over the years. “In April 1992,” Haider told the duo, “I was detained and tortured by Indian troops in Srinagar. They killed my elder brother, destroyed my home, forcing me to flee to Pakistan.”

Pointing to Bilal Baig, Haider told the visitors: “He too suffered.” Baig’s sister-in-law, father were killed by Indian troops. And his sister, Farida Behanji was imprisoned in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail for over a year because of her brother’s activities, Haider revealed.

Kuka Parray

On parting note, Haider informed the fact-finders: “JKIF wants Kashmir’s independence.” He even disclosed the group’s favourite method of attacking troops—”through suicide bombings”. Just like Hamas in Israel, he told the duo.

By 2011, WikiLeaks let the cat out of the bag. It made an expose that American officials knew that Tiger Memon had tied up with ISI and helped create JKIF managed by Bilal Baig, running an indoctrination camp near Muzaffarabad. “One Colonel Farooq of Pakistan ISI tasked Bilal Beig and Tiger Memon to utilize Kathmandu-based activists Lateef and Javed Krawah to set off blasts in Delhi before the Lok Sabha elections,” the cable signed by then US Ambassador to India, Frank Wisner revealed.

On May 21, 1996, JKIF team set off a very high intensity explosion at Lajpat Nagar killing 13 persons, the cable said. “The RDX used in this blast was brought from Kathmandu.”

What possibly could have been the biggest action done by JKIF on Indian soil was a planned chain of explosions in Delhi before Republic day 1997 at the behest of Tiger Memon.

For this, one Faiyaz Ahmed Shah aka Farooq was tasked by Bilal Baig and Javed Krawah in Pakistan. “He was given 20kg of RDX and money in Kathmandu,” the WikiLeaks expose revealed. “Before he could execute the plan, Farooq, along with Ghulam Rasool Mir aka Goga, Aijaz Ahmed Choudhary, Nazir Ahmed, and Manzoor Ahmed Danposhaka Jan, were arrested in Kathmandu on December 11, 1996.” Many thought the group arrest was the last nail in the outfit’s coffin.

Later, one Mushtaq Wani, a militant-turned-separatist, revealed JKIF was formed after Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen group split apart in 1995. “Most of the members were uneducated from Kashmir,” he said. With top brains no longer there, JKIF like Tiger Memon couldn’t keep tick on bangs they loved to create.

But in Kashmir the family never waited for the chopper. Serial 1993 blasts helped them understand the man whose family flew in choppers. Last week, they got a body-bag too.

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