The Meadow Read online

  ADRIAN LEVY AND

  CATHY SCOTT-CLARK

  The Meadow

  Terrorism, Kidnapping

  and Conspiracy in Paradise

  For all of the injured, the dead and the missing

  The headlights filled the road. Everyone cried

  out for mother and father’s love and as the

  doors to the ascent opened the ballad began

  again. For his disappeared love he went from

  hole to hole, grave to grave, searching for the

  eyes that don’t find. From gravestone to

  gravestone, from cry to cry, it went through

  niches, through shadows, and it went like this.

  FROM RAÚL ZURITA, SONG FOR HIS DISAPPEARED LOVE,

  TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY DANIEL BORZUTZKY

  (ACTION BOOKS, NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, 2010)

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  List of Illustrations

  MAPS:

  South Asia

  Central Srinagar

  Southern Kashmir and Doda District

  Trekking and Pilgrimage Routes in Kashmir Valley

  Anantnag District

  Dramatis Personae

  Abbreviations

  Prologue

  1. Packing

  2. A Father’s Woes

  3. The Meadow

  4. Home

  5. Kidnap

  6. The Night Callers

  7. Up and Down

  8. Hunting Dogs

  9. Deadline

  10. Tikoo on the Line

  11. Winning the War, Call by Call

  12. The Golden Swan

  13. Resolution Through Dialogue

  14. Ordinary People

  15. The Squad

  16. The Game

  17. The Goldfish Bowl

  18. Chor-Chor Mausere Bhai (All Thieves are Cousins)

  19. Hunting Bears

  20. The Circus

  Epilogue: Fill Your Arms with Lightning

  Picture Section

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on Sources

  About the Authors

  Praise

  By the Same Authors

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  1. The route to the Meadow, photographed by Hans Christian Ostrø shortly before he was kidnapped. (Marit Hesby)

  2. Julie and Keith Mangan and Catherine Moseley trek towards the Meadow in early July 1995. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)

  3. Cath, Keith and Julie trek towards the Meadow. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)

  4. Setting up camp en route to the Meadow. Photo by Paul Wells. (Bob Wells)

  5. Hans Christian Ostrø being made up for his kathakali dance graduation show in Sreekrishnapuram, May 1995. (Marit Hesby)

  6. Ostrø on board Montana houseboat, Dal Lake, Srinagar. (Marit Hesby)

  7. The Heevan Hotel in Pahalgam. (Courtesy Conveyor magazine, Srinagar)

  8. The wives and girlfriends of the kidnapped men leaving the first press conference at the Welcome Hotel in Srinagar on 13 July 1995. (Agency photo)

  9. Rajinder Tikoo, Inspector General of Crime Branch at the time of the kidnappings. (Undated photo, courtesy Kashmir Times)

  10. Members of the al Faran kidnap party. (Courtesy Maqbool Sahil)

  11. One of the first hostage photographs, taken by al Faran outside the herders’ hut from which John Childs had escaped in the early hours of 8 July. (Agency photo)

  12. Lt. General (retired) D.D. Saklani, Security Advisor to the Governor of Kashmir. (AP)

  13. John Childs reunited with his daughters on 15 July 1995. (Agency photo)

  14. Childs shortly after his rescue. (Agency photo)

  15. A picture of the hostages and their captors that was delivered to the Srinagar Press Enclave on 14 July 1995, shortly before the first deadline expired. (Marit Hesby)

  16. Hostages photographed inside an unidentified herders’ hut, probably in the Warwan Valley. (Marit Hesby)

  17. The Warwan Valley, where the hostages were held for eleven weeks. (Authors’ archive)

  18. Sukhnoi village. (Authors’ archive)

  19. Indian security forces question shepherds about the whereabouts of the hostages. (AP Photo/Qaiser Misra)

  20. Don Hutchings, supposedly injured following a botched Indian security force operation. (Authors’ archive)

  21. Hans Christian Ostrø’s corpse at Anantnag police station in south Kashmir. (Marit Hesby)

  22. The hostages soon after they arrived in the Warwan Valley. (Marit Hesby)

  23. Two views from Mardan Top, at the southern end of the Warwan Valley. (Authors’ archive)

  24. David Mackie and Kim Housego were seized by Pakistan-backed militants in June 1994 and held for seventeen days. (AP)

  25. Letter written by Hans Christian Ostrø to his family and the Norwegian Embassy shortly after his capture. (Marit Hesby)

  26. Ostrø arranged for several batches of photographs, on which he wrote cryptic clues as to the hostages’ condition and location, to be smuggled out of the Warwan. (Marit Hesby)

  27. The contents of Hans Christian Ostrø’s money belt, recovered from his tent at Zargibal. (Authors’ archive)

  28. Press conference given by Jane Schelly and Julie Mangan, Srinagar, July 1995. (Authors’ archive)

  29. Photograph of Paul Wells thought to have been taken in the wooden guesthouse in Sukhnoi village, Warwan, where the hostages were kept for several weeks. (Bob Wells)

  30. Photograph taken by al Faran in August 1995 that served as a prelude to ‘proof of life’ conversations that followed. (Authors’ archive)

  31. In the years following the kidnapping, the families of the hostages announced several rewards for information leading to the return of their loved ones. (Bob Wells)

  32. Jehangir Khan, a commander of the pro-government renegades. (Javid Dar, 2008, courtesy of Conveyor magazine)

  33. Kashmiri women passing an Indian Central Reserve Police Force patrol. (Faisal Khan, 2011, courtesy Conveyor magazine)

  34. The last confirmed photograph of the hostages. (Bob Wells)

  35. Identity card of renegade field commander Basir Ahmad Wagay, aka ‘the Tiger’. (Authors’ archive)

  36. Renegade commander Azad Nabi, call-sign ‘Alpha’. (Authors’ archive)

  37. Naseer Mohammed Sodozey, a treasurer of Harkat ul-Ansar (the Movement). (Authors’ archive)

  38. Omar Sheikh, from London, arrested in Pakistan in 2002 in connection with the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. (AP)

  39. Masood Azhar in Pakistan in January 2000. (AP)

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE HOSTAGES

  John Childs – a forty-two-year-old explosives and ordnance engineer from Connecticut, USA

  Dirk Hasert – a twenty-six-year-old student on a gap year from Bad Langensalza, Germany

  Kim Housego – a sixteen-year-old British boy, kidnapped while on a family holiday in Kashmir in 1994

  Don Hutchings – a forty-two-year-old neuropsychologist and mountaineer from Spokane, Washington State, USA

  David Mackie – a thirty-six-year-old British film producer, kidnapped in 1994 alongside Kim Housego

  Keith Mangan – a thirty-three-year-old electrician from Middlesbrough, England

  Hans Christian Ostrø – a twenty-seven-year-old actor and director from Oslo, Norway

  Paul Wells – a twenty-four-year-old photography student from Blackburn, England

  THE WIVES AND GIRLFRIENDS

  Anne Hennig – Dirk’s girlfriend, a student

  Julie Mangan – Keith’s wife

  Catherine Moseley – Paul’s girlfriend, a social worker

  Jane Schelly – Don’s wife, a PE
teacher and mountaineer

  THE FAMILIES

  Joseph and Helen Childs – John Childs’ parents, from Salem, upstate New York, USA

  Marit Hesby and Anette Ostrø – Hans Christian’s mother, a travel agent, from Oslo, Norway, and his younger sister, a film-maker then based in Stockholm

  David and Jenny Housego – former Financial Times South Asia Bureau Chief, and his wife, a businesswoman, parents of Kim Housego

  Claude and Donna Hutchings – parents of Don Hutchings, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA

  Charlie and Mavis Mangan – Keith’s retired father and his mother, a school dinner lady, from Brookfield, Middlesbrough

  James and Joyce Schelly – Jane Schelly’s parents, from Orefield, Pennsylvania, USA

  Robert and Anita Sullivan – Julie Mangan’s parents, from Eston, Middlesbrough

  Bob and Dianne Wells – Paul’s parents, from Blackburn

  WESTERN DIPLOMATS AND INVESTIGATORS

  Philip Barton – First Secretary at the British High Commission, New Delhi

  Tim Buchs – Second Secretary at the US Embassy, New Delhi

  Frank Elbe – German Ambassador to India

  Sir Nicholas Fenn – British High Commissioner to India

  Tore Hattrem – Political Officer at the Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi

  Gary Noesner – lead hostage negotiator of the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit

  Commander Roy Ramm – hostage negotiator, head of Scotland Yard’s specialist operations

  Arne Walther – Norwegian Ambassador to India

  Frank Wisner – US Ambassador to India

  J&K POLICE AND OFFICIALS

  IG Paramdeep Singh Gill – police chief who instigates his own al Faran inquiry

  DSP Kifayat Haider – police officer with operational responsibility for Pahalgam

  SP Farooq Khan – the first STF chief

  General K.V. Krishna Rao – former chief of the Indian Army and Governor of Kashmir

  DG Mahendra Sabharwal – Kashmir police chief

  SP Mushtaq Sadiq – officer leading the al Faran Squad

  Lt. General (rtd) D.D. Saklani – Security Advisor to the Governor of Kashmir

  IG Rajinder Tikoo – Crime Branch chief, who leads the negotiations with al Faran

  SSP Bashir Ahmed Yatoo – senior Kashmiri police officer seconded to Kashmir State Human Rights Commission to investigate unmarked graves in 2011

  THE KASHMIRI PRESS PACK

  Mushtaq Ali – photographer for AFP. Rescued Kim Housego and David Mackie in 1994, and worked closely with Yusuf Jameel in 1995

  Yusuf Jameel – the BBC’s Srinagar correspondent, instrumental in digging up the story behind the 1995 kidnapping

  THE JIHADIS

  ‘The Afghani’ (Sajjad Shahid Khan) – the Movement’s military commander, a veteran Pashtun fighter from the Afghan–Pakistan border

  Master Allah Baksh Sabir Alvi – retired schoolteacher and father of Masood Azhar

  Masood Azhar – the jailed General Secretary of Harkat ul-Ansar (the Movement for the Victorious), from Bahawalpur, in the Pakistan Punjab, who later became the head of Jaish-e-Mohammed (the Army of Mohammed)

  ‘Brigadier Badam’ – pseudonym for a senior ISI officer who was instrumental in establishing the ISI’s proxy war in Indian Kashmir

  Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil – Masood Azhar’s mentor in Karachi. The spiritual leader of the Movement

  Nasrullah Mansoor Langrial – famed jihadi commander from Langrial, Pakistan, chosen as deputy to the Afghani and known in jihadi circles as ‘Darwesh’

  Omar Sheikh – former student at the London School of Economics, who became a kidnapper for the Movement in 1994. Also involved in the 2002 abduction of American journalist Daniel Pearl

  ‘Sikander’ (Javid Ahmed Bhat) – southern commander of the Movement, from Dabran village, in Anantnag, Kashmir

  Naseer Mohammed Sodozey – a senior fighter in the Movement, captured in April 1996 and forced under torture to incriminate himself in the 1995 kidnappings

  ‘The Turk’ (Abdul Hamid al-Turki) – field commander of al Faran, a veteran mujahideen fighter of Turkish ancestry

  Qari Zarar – Kashmiri deputy commander of al Faran, from Doda, in Jammu

  THE PRO-GOVERNMENT RENEGADES

  ‘Alpha’ or ‘Azad Nabi’ (Ghulam Nabi Mir) – renegade commander based in Shelipora, above Anantnag

  ‘Bismillah’ – Alpha’s deputy, based in Shelipora

  ‘The Clerk’ (Abdul Rashid) – Alpha’s district commander, based in Vailoo, above Anantnag

  ‘The Tiger’ (Basir Ahmad Wagay) – Alpha’s field commander, based in Lovloo, above Anantnag

  ABBREVIATIONS

  AFP – Agence France-Press

  BJP – the Bharatiya Janata Party, a conservative Hindu nationalist political party

  BSF – Border Security Force, a paramilitary outfit raised by India after its war with Pakistan in 1965 and later employed in Kashmir on counter-insurgency operations

  CRPF – Central Reserve Police Force, the paramilitary police inducted into Kashmir to fight the insurgency

  DG – Director General of Police. The force’s chief

  DIG – Deputy Inspector General of Police

  DSP – Deputy Superintendent of Police

  HM (Hizbul Mujahideen: ‘the Party of the Holy Warriors’) – a Kashmiri militant outfit, formed in 1989, heavily backed at first by Pakistan

  HuA (Harkat ul-Ansar: ‘the Movement for the Victorious’) – a group formed in Pakistan in 1993 by the combination of three jihad fronts, including Harkat ul Mujahideen, to rally insurgents fighting India in Kashmir. Designated as a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997

  HuM (Harkat ul-Mujahideen: ‘the Order of Holy Warriors’) – formed in Pakistan in the mid-1980s by Maulana Khalil to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The precursor of Harkat ul-Ansar

  IB – Intelligence Bureau, Indian domestic intelligence

  IG – Inspector General of Police

  IPS – Indian Police Service

  ISI – Inter Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan’s military intelligence agency

  J&K – Jammu and Kashmir

  JKLF – Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, formed in Birmingham, UK, in 1977; one of the first militant outfits to mount an armed struggle against India in Kashmir

  JKSLF, or SLF – Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front, also known as the Students Liberation Front. Formed in Kashmir in 1987

  LoC – Line of Control, the 406-mile-long ‘ceasefire line’ that separates the Indian and Pakistan sections of the divided state of Jammu and Kashmir

  POK – Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, as the Indians sometimes refer to the section of the state administered by Islamabad

  RAW – Research and Analysis Wing, Indian foreign intelligence

  RR – Rashtriya Rifles, an Indian Army force of specialist counter-insurgency troops, formed in 1990 to fight the insurgency in Kashmir

  RSS – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu paramilitary movement founded in 1925 to oppose British colonialism

  SHRC – State Human Rights Commission, an Indian government body that investigates allegations of human rights abuses

  SP – Superintendent of Police

  SSP – Senior Superintendent of Police

  STF/SOG – police Special Task Force, later renamed the Special Operations Group, founded in 1993 to fight the insurgency in Kashmir

  PROLOGUE

  On 1 May 2011, a Prowler electronic-warfare aircraft, taking off from the USS Carl Vinson, jammed Pakistan’s radar systems, silence spreading like emulsion over the Islamic republic. At fifty-six minutes past midnight on the morning of 2 May, two American stealth Hawks, ferrying a team of US Navy Seals, hovered over a walled compound in the spick-and-span garrison town of Abbottabad, seventy-two miles north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

  Over the next few minutes, Operation Neptune Spear came to a head, achieving, with only a dozen shot
s fired, what John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism advisor would call the ‘defining moment’ in the war against terrorism.

  Winkled out of his hiding place by cruising satellites capable of measuring the length of a man’s shadow from six hundred miles up, while down on the ground a medical-aid camp established to counter polio in Abbottabad had been subverted to sniff out residents’ DNA, the elusive Osama bin Laden had finally been tracked down, a decade after 9/11. As he reached across his bed for his AK-47 he was shot dead, ‘decapitating the head of the snake that is al Qaeda’, according to Brennan.

  One chapter in a story of our times had come to an end.

  Sixteen years earlier, in the heights of the Indian Himalayas, where the mountains gather in a half-hitch to encompass the troubled valley of Kashmir, a crime was committed whose nature and cruelty presaged the age of terror Osama would go on to marshal.

  In July 1995, high in the mountains of Kashmir, six Western trekkers – two Britons, two Americans, a German and a Norwegian – were seized by a group of Islamic guerrillas who demanded the release of twenty-one named militants imprisoned in Indian jails in exchange for their lives. At the head of the list was Masood Azhar, a portly cleric from Pakistan.

  Masood Azhar’s early career mirrored that of Osama. Growing up in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province in the seventies and eighties, Masood, the spoiled favourite son of a wealthy landowner, had lacked for nothing – much like the privileged young Osama, whose well-connected family made its fortune constructing palaces for Saudi royals. Educated in an Islamist hothouse in the frenetic port city of Karachi, in Pakistan’s deep south, Masood graduated to become the mouthpiece for a guerrilla outfit that would, like Osama, gravitate to Afghanistan to fight the occupying Soviet Red Army to a standstill.

  When Moscow retreated from Kabul in 1989, Masood and his unemployed fighters had converged on northern Africa, looking for new causes. They found Osama there too, well before ‘the Sheikh’ had been flagged up on Western watchlists. Together, Masood, a stubby firebrand, whose hypnotic patter had already propelled thousands into battle, and Osama, the lean and pensive fugitive whose deep war chest had bought matériel and men, began to direct Afghanistan veterans in a new fight against the West.