Double Agent

The murky world of insurgency and counter insurgency. An extract

Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Almost two years later, after Munna’s role had been unravelled, a section of the leadership believed that he was converted into a mole after being blackmailed by a police officer in Nagaon. It is true that he was apprehended and brought to Guwahati in 1996 and handed over to another senior officer who was to assume a lead role in the infamous secret killings two years later in Assam. Munna was brainwashed continuously for over two months and threatened with incarceration in jail for the rest of his life if he did not fall in line. He finally agreed to execute the lethal plan suggested to him and struck a deal with the officer.

Munna would embark upon the mission with the precondition that he would withdraw if the situation warranted and after that would be given a job in a government department in New Delhi. The officer agreed and briefed him about the objectives he would have to fulfil—gathering as much information about the camps in Bhutan as possible, the outfit’s hideouts in the towns and cities, the networks that ensured the flow of funds and efforts to reach Bangladesh for assassination attempts on the leaders. No time frame was fixed for the execution for these tasks.

Meanwhile, at the camp in Bhutan, Munna was tasked to train the first two batches of Enigma, which he successfully completed within six months. He instructed many among them to get settled in different towns, mostly as petty traders and daily wagers. Subsequently, he was stationed in Guwahati for a few months by the leadership for better coordination among the Enigma functionaries who were scattered in different parts of the valley. And this was what Munna had been waiting for to fulfil part of