The victims prevented their real plan?

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 25. The men who raided the Red Fort here on December 22 may have garnered more accolades than they actually deserved. Investigations by the Delhi police have now revealed that the three persons who fell victim to the terrorists' bullets may have actually prevented them from carrying out their real plan.

``They could have easily killed a large number of people, including some foreigners during the `son et lumiere' (light and sound show). Then why did they settle for just three? Moreover, there were more important officers in the fort at the time of the incident. Why were they not targeted?''

Posing these questions, a senior Delhi police officer today said that though the storming of the fort may have been a moral victory for the terrorists, more was being actually read into the attack than actually exists.

For one, the officer said, the Red Fort is actually not a heavily guarded place. ``This is not the Red Fort of Shah Jahan's time where you had a moat full of water and crocodiles and where the wooden gates provided the only entry point.''

``What we are forgetting is that this fort has a market, Meena Bazar, where a large number of goods come in; it has numerous staff quarters where hundreds of people live; and above all it is a monument which receives hundreds of visitors each day. So having an idea of the interiors or making a foray is no big task.''

Maintaining that entry into the fort is child's play, the officer believes that the terrorists had come with some great plans. ``They probably wanted to do something big. But after they encountered guard Abdullah Thakur and barber combatant Uma Shanker, their plans went awry as they had to open fire. So, in panic, they quickly escaped.''

Incidentally, there were some senior officers residing in the houses very close to barracks where the terrorists had killed Naik Ashok Kumar. ``These officers have served in Jammu and Kashmir and there is a distinct possibility that the terrorists may have been actually after them,'' the police officer said.

Mystery of `six' resolved

After pondering over why some newspapers had carried reports that the first information report filed by the Kotwali police on the storming of the Red Fort had stated that `six' persons had entered the place, while the actual figure was two, the police finally have solved the puzzle.

It now turns out that Captain S.P. Patwardhan of the 7th Battalion of Rajputana Rifles, who had filed the FIR, had indeed mentioned that two persons had entered the Red Fort and fled from the Ring Road side after gunning down three persons. But taking his ``two'' to be ``to'', the person who wrote out the FIR made the ``to'' to appear like a ``6''. And thus arose the controversy over the number of intruders.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : Advani rules out divide in NDA