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

Most bureaucrats in Ailawadi’s place would have said that they had been transferred out and were no longer in a position to help. Instead, he asked me to hand over the receiver to the Immigration Officer. When asked by the Joint Secretary what the problem was, the AFRRO informed him that the passengers the CBI officers wanted to take charge of figured on the wanted list. Ailawadi’s instructions to the Immigration Officer were loud and clear. After all, the officers who had come to receive the passengers were from the CBI, the Investigating Agency of the case. It was precisely because they were wanted, the CBI officers were at the Airport to arrest them. Why should Immigration have a problem? The AFRRO should take a written request from the CBI officers and let them take the Memons with them.

With a trembling hand, I wrote out an application mentioning their real names, their assumed identities, Pakistani passport details etc requesting the AFRRO to let them come with us. He reluctantly acquiesced, now that he had a document to fall back on and his Joint Secretary’s instructions, in case he was ever faulted.

We hurriedly collected their baggage from the carousal and virtually ran out with the Memons from the Airport in CBI. I was later to learn that when the Special Director of Immigration came to know of the entire episode, he was terribly annoyed with the AFFRO. He felt that the Memons should not have been allowed to leave without his consent. Further, the Special Director’s regret was that the Delhi Immigration missed a golden opportunity of showing to the world that it was they who had caught the Memons before handing them over to the CBI. According to him,they could also have claimed the huge reward money announced for their arrest. But, alas, the birds had flown!

To be continued…