“The Da Lakhvi Code” continues …….

Alarmingly, the next message, dated 21 February 2003, came from a new email ID, sundarbhXXXa_hindu@hotmail. com, and it was addressed to puranamakan@hotmail.com. It read:

Brother. Assalam waley kum.
Bhai main aaj hi Sri . . . se del.. aa gaya hun. Uss aadmi se raabta karke aapko khabar karta hun.
Sundar
[Brother, God be with you. I have reached Del.. from Sri today. Once I have established contact with him
I will get back to you. Sundar]

This email was cause for further panic as it indicated that the plan was now in its final stages and someone had come from Srinagar to Delhi to ensure its successful execution.
The first thing I did was to inform my superior, the commissioner of police, Delhi. I suggested to him that the higher-ups in the government should be informed immediately, which he promptly did. Those readers who hail from Delhi and have visited India Gate would know that there was a time when a visitor could walk right up to the base of the monument. In the days before the new security system was imposed, milling crowds of men, women and children thronged the area around India Gate, along with ice cream and snack vendors. At any given point, a minimum of four to five thousand people were present there. From a terrorist group’s viewpoint, what better target could there be than this, and that too at an iconic war memorial? The impact would have been as earth-shattering as the earlier attack on the Parliament House in 2001. I clearly remember that on 22 February, I was summoned to a midnight meeting at the residence of the then home minister, L.K. Advani. The heads of various intelligence agencies, the home secretary and yours truly attended the meeting. I was asked to brief everyone present on the sequence of events and what needed to be done by the government. I showed to all present the encrypted messages, their decoded versions and the clear indications of an imminent terror strike at India Gate, as concealed in the emails exchanged.


To be Continued ……….