Bullets For Broadway

Red, red rose: NSG men after the ops

"We kept firing, threw in a few grenades but figured out that the terrorists were hiding in the bath tub. They returned fire and injured Major Saurav Shah. Saurav went on the RT (radio transmission) that he was bleeding and losing consciousness. We immediately did an evac (evacuation)". Another bullet whizzed past Major Bharat, taking off a bit of his left ear. (Soon after the operation at the Trident concluded a colleague fished out a get-well card with this cheeky message: "Enjoy life since it's too short. Just two inches short!")

14:40

November 27.
Taj Hotel (Heritage Wing)

Col Sheoran, who had tactical command of the operations at the Taj hotel, was getting worried. While earlier estimates had indicated two terrorists, his men reported four. "Some of the terrorists were using a ladder between the restaurant on the top and a bar below to keep switching between floors. We homed in on their position and began to pin them down. Our prime concern was to keep all the trapped guests in one place so that we could evac them," an officer told Outlook. The commandos had to break down doors finger on the trigger, hoping to meet scared guests but ready for terrorists, just in case. The effort became tougher since the master electronic key to the hotel rooms was not functioning. "The shockwaves from the grenade blasts had rendered them useless so we just cracked the doors down."

Back at the Oberoi-Trident, the terrorists were exchanging abuse with the commandos. Recalls an SAG commando: "One of them started abusing Lt Col Sharma saying they would f*** his mother. We shouted back that we would do the same to him to provoke him into exposing himself." As the operation continued, an old joke was recounted: "All terrorists will eventually meet God. It's our job to fix an appointment for them!"

Incidentally, the commandos had to fall back on a bit of ingenuity to solve the hiccups hampering operations. Since radio batteries had gone dead, they communicated with each other using sign language and 'playacting'. At other times, some would run down all 21 floors to get the ready-to-eat meals, or replace the depleting batteries for their RT sets. "We became so good at hand signals that we are planning to team up with Col Rathee for a dumb charades team!"

07:45

November 28.
Nariman House

By nightfall on Thursday the SAG teams had figured out that Nariman House would be the trickiest to deal with. With limited entry points available, the squadrons had to take an aerial route to storm the building. On the 28th morning, an IAF helicopter hovered overhead as the commandos slithered down to the roof of the building. Intercepts of the terrorist communication had already revealed that the hostages were all dead. The commandos smashed their way into the building with suppressing fire from the terrace while their snipers gave covering fire. The SAG team killed two terrorists after a fierce gunbattle only to discover the decomposed bodies of the Israeli rabbi couple and their guests.

09:10 to 18:00

November 29.
Taj Hotel (Heritage Wing)

Throughout Friday night, the battle for the Taj continued to rage. The terrorists were firing intermittently while playing a deadly game of hide and seek. Earlier in the operation, the SAG team suffered a major loss when Major Unnikrishnan, chasing a terrorist along with havildar Yadav, came under fire. Yadav was hit and Sandeep immediately pulled him out, cautioned his colleagues to pull back and bounded up the stairs after the terrorists and engaged them in battle. He succumbed to their bullets.

Meanwhile the operation dragged on. Recalls a commando: "The terrorists would continuously run between floors and we kept chasing them." Finally, isolating them on the first floor, the final assault began early on November 29. Lobbing a few grenades, the SAG team rushed the room where the last terrorist was holing up for several hours. As the bullets hit him, he was pushed back against the window and he tumbled out and fell on the road below. Nearly 61 hours after the first shot had been fired by the terrorists, the operation was finally over and the commandos had won back the Taj hotel, inch by inch.