As the debris of the 60 hour long Mumbai nightmare is cleared and the dead are laid to rest and medical fraternity try to save as much of the injured as they can, it is time for questions to be raised. Many have already been raised and more will continue to be raised from all over the world in the coming days, by experts and those on the ground. One is therefore refraining from raising any at this point of time.
But as an informed and interested viewer of the 60 hour drama being played out in front of our eyes, one has been rather hugely intrigued by something one watched in the afternoon of Friday, when the siege was already 41 hours old.
Switching channels furiously to catch something unusual which can give a new perspective to the happenings in Mumbai, one stopped at Aaj Tak, to find a Virendra Sehwag look-alike, with the shaven head and all, being questioned breathlessly by the unseen anchor. The caption read--- Sajan Kapur (or Kapoor) --- Taj se chudaye gaye bandhak (hostage released from Taj).
What Kapur, presumably a Punjabi going by the name, but with a rather heavy malayali accent in his Hindi, was revealing was sensational. His story went something like this---
On the night of Nov.26, soon after the gunmen were found firing indiscriminately in several places in Mumbai, and the Taj Hotel siege began, he got a call from the Mumbai Police's ace "encounter specialist", Vijay Salaskar. The cop told Kapur about the firing happening in Taj and instructed him to reach the hotel. His brief was to go in and merge in the crowd and find out what is happening exactly and to report to him (Salaskar). Though this was left unsaid, obviously Kapur was an "informer" of Salaskar who has been used before also for such assignments.
Kapur promptly landed up in Taj and walked in and found himself taken hostage by the gunmen. He along with two others, foreigners, were taken to Room No.630 on the sixth floor and held hostage for several hours. It was not clear for how many hours. But during these hours, what Sajan Kapur saw and heard is nothing short of sensational.
According to Kapur, this room was the operation base of the gunmen/terrorists. He saw so much arms and ammunition there, he was left wonderstruck how they managed to gather all that in a five star hotel room. Now it becomes more interesting. Unlike what we were being regularly fed by the numerous reporters of various TV channels who in turn were feeding from NSG and other security sources, there were not just four or five terrorists in the Taj Hotel. Kapur said with a straight face without any hint of confusion or doubt, that he had seen 17 terrorists! And according to him, they were coming in and going out of room no.630, conducting operations and very interestingly communicating with someone from Karachi. Kapur insists he was a witness to some of these gunmen, who had mobile phones and satellite phones too, were getting calls from Karachi, and were being told what to do, and also about what the security forces were planning and doing outside the hotel. Obviously they were monitoring the Indian news channels.
But what is most interesting about Kapur's story as he narrated on Aaj Tak, was about the conversation he heard among some of the young gunmen. It went something like this---
"Yaar in India ke neta ke pass kitna paisa hain"( hey, how much money these Indian politicians have?), asked one of the young gunmen to the other. The other replied (all in front of Kapur) --- "tere ko kya lene ka—tumhe mil gaya na paisa"( hey, why are you bothered about it, you got your money no).
In fact the excited anchor asks repeatedly if the terrorists were talking of money, and if he felt they were paid for the job. Kapur reiterates and even goes on to say, that there was even a scuffle or verbal fight between the terrorists on the question of money. He also talks about the leader of the gang having been killed in the second or third floor, which also lead to some "fight" between the other gunmen.
Now coming to the intriguing part. Normally an eye witness like this would have been grabbed by all the TV channels. But somehow only Aaj Tak managed to get him and even kept him in their Mumbai studios for a couple of hours almost, during which they kept coming back to him, and he went on giving more and more interesting details. One however missed his take on how he escaped from the clutches of his captors.
However, what is most intriguing is that Sajan Kapur has disappeared after that appearance on Aaj Tak. Not a single newspaper one has seen so far( more than half a dozen) has a word about this most interesting "hostage" who had escaped, leave alone what he claimed on TV channel, that he had seen and heard.
ON the Aaj Tak web site, the clipping of his interview is still available, but not all that he said. Though his claim of the gunmen talking of money and Indian politicians is very much available. Those interested can even watch it by clicking on this link http://aajtak.itgo.in/index.php?option=com_registration&exist=yes&type=1&task=videopage&assignedvideoid=4116§ionid=21&secid=0 .
Now some questions which invariably crops up and begs for an answer. Who is this Sajan Kapur? Why has no newspaper or other news channels not been able to get him or if they have, not published or telecast what he claims? Are there more to this entire dastardly terror acts than what is generally believed to be at this point of time---- the Lashkar connection and all that?
http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2008/11/29/Who-is-this-Sajan-Kapur-Were-gunmen-paid-to-create-Mumbai-terror/
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