STORYMIRROR

Adhithya Sakthivel

Action Thriller Others

4  

Adhithya Sakthivel

Action Thriller Others

FIEND

FIEND

17 mins
336



                             

Note: This story is a continuation of Agent: Chapter 3 forming as the part of "Adhi Story Universe" and had been inspired from some true-life events about Arms trafficking in India. A few Hollywood films like Die Hard and two more English novels too served as an inspiration for me to write this story.

Link for Agent: Chapter 3- https://storymirror.com/read/story/english/xw9uwzs2/agent-chapter-3/detail


27 FEBRUARY 2019:

On 27 February 2019, Captain Shaik Sulaiman was flying a MIG-21 as a part of a sortie that was scrambled to intercept an intrusion intro Indian-administered Kashmir by Pakistani aircraft. In the dogfight that ensued, he crossed into Pakistani airspace and his aircraft was struck by a missile. Sulaiman ejected and safely descended into the village of Horran in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, approximately 7 km from the Line of Control.

Local villagers identified Sulaiman as an Indian pilot by the Indian flag on his parachute. Upon landing, he asked the villagers whether he was in India, to which a young boy lied by saying “Yes.” Sulaiman raised pro-India slogans, to which the locals responded with pro-Pakistan slogans. Sulaiman began firing warning shots. The villagers captured and manhandled Sulaiman before he was rescued by the Pakistan Army.

Later that day, the Indian Army and The Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed an Indian pilot was missing in action after a MIG-21 Bison fighter aircraft was lost while engaging with Pakistani jets. Major Rishi Khanna said in the meeting: “Sir. Sulaiman had shot down a PAF Lockheed Martin F-16.”

After the talks with the Pakistan Government, Sulaiman was released and he crossed the India-Pakistan border at Wagah on 1 March 2019. At a political rally, the Indian Prime Minister welcomed his release, saying the nation was proud of him.

TWO YEARS LATER:

04 NOVEMBER 2021:

FUN REPUBLIC MALL, COIMBATORE:

On the Diwali occasion on November 4, 2021 Major Rishi Khanna arrives at Fun Republic Mall in Coimbatore. Seeing Anjana in maroon-color sari, he goes near to her. Upon seeing his face, she tries to leave from the place, which he stops and said: “Anjana. I have to talk with you.”

“No way Rishi. Our relationship is over before two years.” She continues to go towards the lift along with some of her friends to watch a recently released Tamil film in the theater. After Prozone Mall, Fun Republic Mall is the biggest in Coimbatore. It have dress shops, food processing center and several other entertainments with multiple staircase and steps.

Rishi Khanna hopes to reconcile with Anjana although she avoids him. While he changes clothes inside the washroom, the tower is seized by Farooq Abdullah and his heavily armed team, including Askar and Ahmed Khan. Everyone in the mall is taken as hostage except for Rishi Khanna, who slips away and Anjana remains oblivious to events.

Abdullah is posing as a terrorist to retrieve important arms licenses and guns, that have been kept in untraceable bearer bonds in the building’s vault. Entering inside the vault, Abdullah holds Executive Rishivaran in gun point and asked him: “Hey. Tell the access code quickly man.”

However, Rishivaran remains stubborn and didn’t unveil the access code to him. Angered, Abdullah angrily beats him up. Taking a knife, he said by keeping it in Rishivaran’s throat: “You bastard. Go to the hell da.”

He brutally slits the throat of Rishivaran, who dies after a moments of struggling. Abdullah taks Askar with breaking into the vault. The terrorists are alerted to Rishi Khanna’s presence. Looking at Ahmed Khan, Farooq said: “Go faster man. Go and kill him.” Ahmed takes his gun to go and kill him. However, Rishi Khanna kills Ahmed by grabbing his gun. He takes his weapon and radio. Sitting in a dark theater room, Rishi called the Indian Army office of Kashmir region.

“Hello sir. This is Major Rishi Khanna speaking from Fun Republic Mall of Coimbatore.” Hearing this, Colonel Shaik Sulaiman said: “Yes Major. How are you? Have called us suddenly?”

“Sulaiman. Fun Republic Mall of Coimbatore had been hijacked by 12 terrorists.”  

“What are you saying sir? In such a big mall, how could the people be able to hijack?” As he had been telling this, Rishi Khanna said: “Sulaiman. No time for chatter. Do something for this please.” Sulaiman reports to his senior officer in the Indian Army, who in turn informs the Prime Minister office after speaking with the Indian Army officials through an organized meeting. The Prime Minister calls Visvajith Sarwanand Pandit through his mobile.

“Yes sir.” Visvajith Sarwanand Pandit answered the call and said to the officer. The Prime Minister said: “Visvajith. Where are you?”

“Sir. I am with my wife Raghavarshini and child Anshika in Coimbatore. Any problem sir?” asked Visvajith to which, the Prime Minister said: “Fun Republic Mall had been hijacked by terrorists, Visvajith. An Indian Army officer have reported about it.”

“Oh! It’s just shocking sir. How come it’s possible? It’s the biggest mall in Coimbatore after The Prozone Mall.” As Visvajith said this, the Prime Minister asked him: “No time for chatter. You go and investigate the mall quickly.” Looking at his daughter and wife, he reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, Rishi Khanna kills more terrorists and recovers their pistols and detonators. The same time, Visvajith comes inside the mall and finds nothing amiss.

Visvajith gets inside his car and starts. That time, Rishi drops a terrorist’s severed head onto his car. Shocked, Visvajith reported about the terrorists to the State-Central Government as well as the Prime Minister.

“Sir. We need an immediate backup.” Visvajith said to the Prime Minister, with his personal mobile phone, through which he had been speaking with the Prime Minister. While, the other phone he used was for official purpose(kept for family purpose and other house-related activities).

Hearing this, the Prime Minister said: “Ok. I will send the NIA forces to the mall.” After consulting the party members, the Prime Minister sends the NIA team to Mall, by arranging them the helicopters.

The NIA(National investigation agency) team attempts to storm the building but is assaulted by the terrorists. Slowly, Visvajith reaches Rishi Khanna from the parking lot with the help of lift. He had been killing the terrorists ruthlessly. Rishi was about to stab Visvajith using the knife, which he had grabbed from a nearby wall to kill terrorists.

“Hey. Cool. I am not a terrorist. I have come here to help you out.” Hearing this Rishi Khanna laughed and said: “What? To help me out. How? By killing these dreaded terrorists ah?” However, when one of the terrorists come, Visvajith throws some grenade down an elevator shaft, causing an explosion that kills some of the terrorists and ends the assault.

Watching all these through CCTV footage, Abdullah ordered the terrorists to kill the hostages. From the upstairs of the mall, Visvajith and Rishi Khanna finds more terrorists with AK-47 gun, holding Anjana and her friend Janani at gun point. Turning back to Rishi, he said: “Rishi. I think someone is watching us behind.” He too suspects the same and decides to fight the terrorists. Meanwhile, Farooq threatens Visvajith and Rishi Khanna through an audio message saying: “My dear Indian patriots. It’s well good if you both surrender to us. Or else you have to see more people dying along with that two people, who are held in gun point. However, both the guys refuses to surrender.

This angers Farooq. His men takes Janani and Anjana to the CCTV room, where he showcases a live video footage to everyone through the screen, arranged by the terrorists at the mall. In the video, Anjana and Janani are held at gunpoint where Farooq tells: “Indian soldiers and my dear hostages. This video is not to hurt your sentiments or your emotions. But, to warn you about my cruelty and ruthlessness.” Taking the AK-47 gun, he brutally kills Janani by shooting her multiples of times.

With a pool of blood running inside the room, Janani dies. Seeing her dead body, Anjana shouts and cried out aloud. Angered with this, Rishi searches for Farooq leaving Visvajith to look after the remaining terrorists. While checking fake gun licenses and guns in the building vault, Farooq encounters Rishi Khanna.

“Hey. What are you doing here? This is restricted area. Go that side.” Rishi said to Farooq. Farooq pretends to cry and said: “Sir. There are terrorists inside the mall. They have hijacked the building. I somehow escaped from the place and came here accidentally.” Believing that he is an escaped hostage, Rishi gives him a gun. With the gun, Farooq attempts to shoot Rishi but finds the weapon is unloaded and is saved only by the intervention of other terrorists.

Rishi escapes with the help of lift, upstairs. But, he is injured by shattered glass and loses the detonators. Outside the mall, the State police officers, National Investigation Agency takes control over the mall. Additionally Indian Army officials, headed by Shaik Sulaiman also takes control over the mall, being instructed by the State Chief Minister Joseph and the Central Government. The Indian Army officials order the power to be shut off which, as Farooq had anticipated, disables the final vault lock so his team can collect the illegal weapons, gun licenses and the machine gun.

Farooq comes through the audio call with Shaik Sulaiman, who had been appointed as the general advisor for terrorists and government. He said: “Greetings Sulaiman.”

“Greetings.” He said. Now, Farooq said: “Sulaiman. If you and the NIA fulfill my demand, the hostages would be released.”

“What demands?” asked an NIA Agent to which, he said: “We wanted a helicopter.” The NIA agrees to Farooq’s demand for a helicopter intending to send gunship helicopters, suggested by Sulaiman in order to eliminate the group. Rishi Khanna realizes Farooq’s plans to blow the roof to kill the hostages and fake his team’s deaths. Askar, enraged by the death of Ahmed, attacks Rishi and is seemingly killed. Farooq meanwhile, sees a news report by George Palaniappan on Rishi’s love interest Anjana and her photo. The hostages are taken to the roof top of the mall while, Farooq keeps Anjana with him. However, Visvajith intervenes and drives the hostages from the roof just before Farooq detonates it and destroys the approaching Indian Army and NIA helicopters. Meanwhile, Farooq’s specialist, Rajendran retrieves an escape vehicle from the parking lot but is knocked out by Rishi Khanna, who has been following events on his radio, since the incident of hijacking.

A weary and battered Rishi Khanna finds Anjana with Farooq and his remaining henchman. In order to save Anjana, he surrenders to Farooq and is about to be shot, but Visvajith comes to the spot. Visvajith grabs his concealed service pistol taped to his back and uses his last two bullets to wound Farooq and kill his accomplice. Farooq crashes through a windo

w but grabs onto Anjana’s wristwatch and makes a last-ditch attempt to kill the pair before Rishi Khanna unclasps the watch. But the plan misfires and Farooq falls to his death. Outside, Askar ambushes Visvajith, Anjana and Rishi Khanna, but he is shot dead by Shaik Sulaiman. Anjana apologized to Rishi Khanna for not understanding him and the couple embraced with an emotional hug.

Visvajith drives Anjana and Rishi Khanna away together in his car to meet the Indian Army officials and NIA agents in the Commissioner office of Coimbatore, where Visvajith wanted to discuss something important about this mall hijacking with them.

COMMISSIONER OFFICE, COIMBATORE:

In the Commissioner office, the ruling party State ministers, the opposition party leader, some important Central Ministers and other police officials are seated. There, the Opposition party leader lashed out at the police asking them, “Sir. Fun Republic Mall is one of the biggest malls in Coimbatore. Is this the way you protect the mall? They have brutally killed securities and the innocent hostages. Who is responsible to all these things?”

“This mall hijack itself shows how much efficient your government is!” One of the Central ministers said, keeping his hands in the face. While, Visvajith searched for words and said: “Sir. May I speak something?”

“Yes Visvajith. Speak.” As Shaik Sulaiman permits, Visvajith asked them: “Sir. Did you heard about Operation Zubaida?”

“Zubaida?” One of the officials asked to which, Visvajith replied: “Yes sir. Operation Zubaida. It covers four states- Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The investigators have seized around a thousand fake arms licenses and 450 illegal weapons. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Till the time of filing this report, the operation was being carried out at other locations like Coimbatore and Kanniyakumari to neutralize the highly profitable criminal syndicate.”

“What evidence do you have for this sir?” asked the State ministers, to which Visvajith shows them a pen drive, consisting of the details about Arms Trafficking in India. With the help of the screen, he said: “Sir. I am offered by our honorable Central Government the job of National Security advisor, after solving the Kashmir problem in India. But, I refused that and instead, want to continue my service as an undercover RAW agent.” This shocked Rishi Khanna. Since, he had been harsh with Visvajith, without knowing that he was an undercover officer.

Visvajith further said: “Sir. For each license and weapon like a revolver, the network was charging Rs. 12 Lakh. For pistols, the price was more. The number of fake licenses and guns could go up to several thousands as the gunrunners were operating for the last eight years. We have received reliable inputs about a few more modules of the same network in other states. It is very clear that the gang was distributing arms licenses and guns like vegetables.”

The Army officials and Rishi laughed upon hearing the term “Vegetables.” While Visvajith continued to show the evidences through the screen and said in addition: “Top sources said the first tip-off came in April and technical surveillance was mounted in early May. The electronic input was verified through human sources before Operation Zubaida was launched with six-handpicked operatives of the ATS. All the six seasoned officers were placed under the command of a well-known terrorist-hunter and senior IPS officer. They started working in silos, and inputs were shared with each other only on a need-to-know basis.”

“So, what was their aim?” A police officer asked him

“To tack the entire supply chain- from manufacturing fake licenses to the gun shops that sold weapons ultimately to the buyers.” Visvajith said. However, Sulaiman gets confused and asked him: “Sir. How could you know about this secret undercover mission? Since, you are an undercover RAW agent!”

Visvajith laughed and said: “Indeed, I was the mastermind behind Operation Zubaida Sulaiman. I have went to my hometown Kashmir, not for spending my memorable time. But, for a secret mission to know about this Arms trafficking.

EIGHT MONTHS BACK:

After finishing the mission in Kashmir, Visvajith was asked by the Prime Minister to investigate about Arms Trafficking in undercover, following his refusal to work as a National Security advisor. During the investigation in Rajasthan, he comes to know about Zuber Mohamed, whose grandfather Wali Mohammed used to run a legitimate gun shop in Rajasthan till 2007 when the license expired and it was not renewed. Since then, Zuber was acting as a “showroom” for the gun-running cartel. The second player, Vishal, a resident of Abohar in Punjab was working as a “transporter.” The third and key cog of the syndicate is Rahul, a Kashmir native, who was acting as a “manufacturing unit” for fake licenses. Visvajith went to Kashmir, after learning about Rahul. In undercover, he observes his activities during the period of Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and the aftermath. Slowly he became friend with Rahul and joined his gang in order to learn his activities.

To acquire weapons in bulk, the three had allegedly lured a legitimate gun shop owner Askar and Ahmed in Dewas to meet the demand and keep the supply chain up and running. The supplier in Dewas, condemned Ajmal, who is under the scanner for two reasons. First, he is a close relative of Zubair, second, most of the guns procured on the basis of fake licenses were purchased from his shop. Visvajith continued his mission by examining the records of Jammu and Kashmir’s gun dealers after going through Ajmal’s records.

Besides the three key players, five to six others(including Askar, Ahmed and Farooq Abdullah) were hired on the basis of requirement. They had adapted six to seven modus operandi. The most startling one was making fake licenses in the name of Army men that were sold to civilians to purchase prohibited weapons, pistols, revolvers and rifles. The cartel manufactured fake residence certificates of Jammu and Kashmir.

They also manipulated names and photographs of local residences and purchased arms in other states. Since it was supplied to Tamil Nadu and Andhra too and requires to be reported to the respective licensing authority, Visavjith have found the process was not followed in a single case. The entire system was flouted and suspects the present ruling party of Tamil Nadu government being mastermind in supporting these people for their own benefits. During an interrogation the last week in Srinagar, Visvajith finds out the fake seals of District Collector Kupwara and Home Department of Jammu and Kashmir. In some cases the addresses on the fake licenses are incomplete but they were able to procure weapons.

During the undercover investigation, Rahul comes to know about Visvajith’s identity. Henceforth, Visvajith shoots him to death and reports to the government about his illegal activities, after which they seize the house of Rahul. Following the death of Rahul in encounter, Ajmal too was killed by the police in his state. Threatened, Askar, Ahmed and Farooq escaped to Tamil Nadu.

PRESENT:

Upon hearing this, everyone are shocked. The Central minister asked him, “Who were the mastermind behind this and who are all those buyers?”

“Sir. Three weapons were purchased on a single license by a big hotelier. We have questioned a variety of people, including mall owners, property dealers and a liquor baron. Many of them had a feeling of virtual insecurity and some rich people wanted weapons just for fun.”

“So you already know about the three people’s location in Coimbatore. Am I right?” Shaik Sulaiman asked him to which, Visvajith nodded yes and said: “I further know that, they are planning to hijack a mall through one of my undercover agent, placed in Farooq’s gang Sulaiman. I subsequently, came to Coimbatore informing the Prime minister. As expected, they hijacked Fun Republic Mall. I went there after being informed by the Prime Minister.”

“Why they wanted to hijack a mall?” asked Rishi Khanna to which, Visvajith said: “One of my boys have deliberately parked the ammunition car inside the parking lot of the mall. From that car, they replaced the fake licenses and guns inside the vault of this mall. Henceforth, Farooq’s gang were forced to hijack the mall. Additionally, their main motive of hijacking is to save Rahul and avenge the death of Ajmal.”

In his final words, Visvajith said looking at the NIA: “Sir. Do you know? For each license and weapon like a revolver, the network was charging Rs. 12 Lakh. For pistols, the price was more. The number of fake licenses and guns could go up to several thousands as the gunrunners were operating for the last eight years.”

He submits the file related to Arms Trafficking to them. Looking at the file, one of the NIA agent said: “This is the biggest arms trafficking racket since 1947 sir.”

Before leaving, Visvajith looks at Rishi Khanna and said: “Major Rishi Khanna. Good job. You was ready to sacrifice your own life in the mission of saving our hostages.”

Rishi said: “I can’t match up to your personality, Visvajith Sarwanand Pandit. If luck comes, I wish to work along with you in undercover.” They both share a hug. Rishi salutes him saying: “You are the real heroes of this nation Visvajith.”

However, he said: “You too is the real hero Rishi. You know? Courage without conscience is a wild fiend. And I find that in you. All the best for your next mission Major.” Visvajith proceeds to go out of the room. He meets his wife Raghavarshini and daughter Anshika at the outskirts of Coimbatore International Airport, from where they continues their journey back to Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Visvajith have mentioned about the involvement of state ministers and the Chief Minister with the Arms dealers in the file, that he had submitted to the NIA. Thus, the NIA arrests Chief Minister and State Minister. While, Rishi Khanna reconciles with Anjana, who had been waiting for him outside. Three months later, Rishi Khanna and Anjana(now married), goes to the memorial of Janani, where Rishi apologized to her by kneeling down besides her cemetery.

Rishi gets a phone call from Indian Army, which he attends going far away from Anjana.

“Major Rishi. An important news for you.”

“Yes sir.” As he said, the officer told him: “Rishi. You are recruited by Research and Analytics Wing for an important mission.” Rishi smiled and hangs off the call. Looking at Anjana he said: “Anjana. Be safer inside the home. I am going for an important work to New Delhi.”

Although she know the lie of Rishi, she agrees and he proceeds to go for New Delhi through flight, where he meets officers in RAW. To his surprise, the team have recommended Visvajith for training and mentoring Rishi Khanna, before he sets out for the next mission.

Meeting Visvajith, Rishi said: “I expected to work along with you for the next mission. By god’s grace, it had been fulfilled.” Hearing this, Visvajith smiled at him and asked to Rishi: “Can we go for a coffee Rishi Khanna?”

“Yeah sure.” They both goes outside. While, Visvajith wears his cooling glass and keeps a gun in his back, implying that he is ready for the next mission.


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