“Return of the Memons: A Pyrrhic Victory” continues…

When Suresh came to the Reception, he was elated to see Prabhu and his officers he had got to know so well during his various visits to the Consulate. To Suresh’s relief, the ISI goons, seen earlier sitting in the lobby, had disappeared. Prabhu then moved, with his entire entourage and Suresh, to the place where the Memons were waiting, all packed up. They were all bundled into a SUV of the Consulate. Emotional goodbyes were exchanged between the family and Rahin, who was taken in another car to the Consulate staffer’s place.

My guess is that the immediate objective of the ISI agents in Dubai was to somehow hassle the Memons to an extent that they did not leave for India. Clearly, they do not have any police powers of their own to stop or detain anybody in Dubai; so they had to stay at a distance and keep the Memons, particularly Suresh, on tenterhooks. I am sure they (the ISI) had tied up with the Immigration Staff at the Dubai International Airport, where the Memons travelling on Pakistani passports would be stopped from proceeding to India on some specious ground.

It was already late in the evening of August 24, 1994. Both Prabhu and Suresh had stopped communicating with me and I knew their silence augured well. Neither of them was in any difficulty and was, therefore, quiet.

I began to get calls from the Air India security staff deployed at the Dubai International Airport. They were police officers on deputation with Air India Security and Vigilance branch, whom I had kept in the loop. They informed me of unprecedented activity at the Airport and they could sense something big was in the offing. They further reported that senior officers from the Immigration Branch and the Pakistani Consulate were in animated confabulations with each other near the Air India check-in counter, which had yet not started operating. I smiled and thought to myself: let the jokers wait at the Dubai Airport while their quarries fly out from elsewhere.

To be continued…