J K Dutt: You know well over here when the terrorist came, it was again a matter of terrorism personified. They entered into the Khyber restaurant, they shot people indiscriminately and they immediately took ten persons hostages, they took them to the top floor.

•Shekhar Gupta: They basically pushed them up the staircase.

J K Dutt: Yes, they were two of them with their weapons pointing, no body has the ..no body would dare to sort of not do what they were demanding. So, they went up the stairs and at the top floor over there they started shooting at them. Six of them were killed on the spot, four of them played dead.

•Shekhar Gupta: They pretended to be dead.

J K Dutt: They pretended to be dead but they were only injured and in fact when they got the chance later, when the terrorists left that spot they immediately ran to the roof top. Now, at the Khyber, same thing happened. There was a lot of bloodshed over there, when I visited that place, the service lanes, the kitchen, the hotel staff had been attacked, the guests had been attacked; those who were living in the rooms those persons had been attacked and over here when we came again; you see one was that the environment was totally new for the NSG; we did not really know the set up of the hotel. We tried to get the maps; in Taj we were able to get them in the beginning but it took some time before some body could really explain the set up of the rooms. Same thing happened over here, by the time we got the thing here, you know the terrorists had been moving. Only thing that I would say here that we were able to, the marcos over here were also trying to pin them down to one particular place.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, how did you get to the top floor, climbing?

J K Dutt: No, we had a staircase. The emergency staff one. So, from that side we sent up two teams and the one which reached the top from there we started.

•Shekhar Gupta: How big were these teams?

J K Dutt: Enough to take care of the situation they had to deal with.

•Shekhar Gupta: Its not correct to…

J K Dutt: …talk about how many persons there are. It was enough. If we required ore people we would have probably sent in one more hit. Now, hit is the smallest unit which we use.

•Shekhar Gupta: About six people.

J K Dutt: On the 18th floor the shooting started so we knew that hey were over there and over here the terrorists had gone inside a room. 1856, I still remember the room number.

•Shekhar Gupta: It’s a room I have stayed in several times.

J K Dutt: Same room?

•Shekhar Gupta: Yes

J K Dutt: I think there would be now changing the complete inside, it will look absolutely different. Over there they had to almost force the door open and as soon as they forced the door open, there was a firing shooting from inside and one of my commandos was very badly injured. But, even in that condition he kept his presence of mind, he fired back and he killed one terrorist.

•Shekhar Gupta: Did you try to capture anybody alive?

J K Dutt: You see, as I said, one of my objective was to see if we could capture the terroriss alive as far as possible because I all such cases of terrorism, it is very necessary to interrogate the person to find out the links, the set ups, who the operators are, who the leaders are, who their other supporters may be, what their other plans may be? All, a lot of wealth of information can be obtained from them and that is why we were trying to get this. This also if you have two persons, you get a lot of corroborations as well.

•Shekhar Gupta: Yes, because there was Kasab and some body else.

J K Dutt: Yeah, now the thing was that at one or two places, on two or three occasions; this was at the Taj also and also at the Oberoi, you know we did sort of say that you have no chance of getting out of this place alive, you better surrender yourself; at least you life will be saved. But, they would only reply with a string of abuses and they would start shooting from their weapons.

•Shekhar Gupta: String of abuses in Punjabi?

J K Dutt: Well, honestly I didn’t ask my men if it was in English or Punjabi, but I suppose coming from that side probably Punjabi.

•Shekhar Gupta: I am talking in terms of the ethnics…

J K Dutt: Yeah, probably it was that string of choice abuses which one hears in Punjabi. That sort of thing, that was there. After that, of course since that was the answer enough and there was no question of then negotiating or having a negotiator talking to these guys.

•Shekhar Gupta: There was never any negotiation? Any demands ever?

J K Dutt: No, nothing beyond this. They didn’t make any demands at all. But, yes you see in one of the intelligence inputs which I got from Delhi was that there was a telephone call which had been intercepted and apparently this was an international call and it had been diverted through another country.

•Shekhar Gupta: Through the US I believe.

J K Dutt: Yes, and it was mentioned over there that in the Taj there are members of Parliament, that very senior bureaucrats are staying there and if you want you can take any one in your custody as hostage and whatever demand you want you can make.

•Shekhar Gupta: Your injuries- you lost two lives?

J K Dutt: Yes.

•Shekhar Gupta: How many injuries did you suffer?

J K Dutt: Eight of them were hospitalised out of which one of them also had an eye injury which was due to shrapnel from a grenade that went into his eye.

•Shekhar Gupta: That was an officer too?

J K Dutt: This was an officer too.

•Shekhar Gupta: But, I believe progressing well now.

J K Dutt: Yes, given the best of medical treatment we could. In fact, you know I wish we had a few more medical officers with us.

•Shekhar Gupta: I believe NSG is really short of doctors.

J K Dutt: Well, yes the number has come down because over all in the Para-military forces, I believe, there is a vacancy of over 300 doctors. We are just not getting them.

•Shekhar Gupta: Is it true, when you came here at one point with almost 500 men? 200, 150 or 400 men.

J K Dutt: The first lot was 200 men. The lot which came later were much smaller.

•Shekhar Gupta: Then you had two more lots. One came in the afternoon and one came a little bit later. When, you were getting worried that you might have to rotate them.

J K Dutt: Yes, yes.

•Shekhar Gupta: They were in contact with terrorists in three places.

J K Dutt: Three venues yes.

•Shekhar Gupta: In fact they had suffered casualties in three places. They lost two lives.

J K Dutt: In Oberoi, for example, there were only injuries.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, there was combat in three places simultaneously.

J K Dutt: Yes, oh yes simultaneously.

•Shekhar Gupta: And is it true that for all this you had only one doctor on duty.

J K Dutt: Yes, there was only one doctor, one medical officer who was available with us. In fact, I feel that these are the steps which are now being taken. The force is being modernized and equipped with such things.

•Shekhar Gupta: It’s unfortunate that you suffered, say, 10 casualties, 2 killed and 8 wounded… 8 hospitalised. More could’ve got hit. But this could’ve been much worse and one doctor would have been completely…

J K Dutt: Yes, Because when we have three venues, I would have personally liked for each of the three venues one person to be there.

•Shekhar Gupta: Take us now to Nariman House, the third one. What actually became one of the most enduring visuals of the operation. You know those commandos coming down from that helicopter.

J K Dutt: Yes, I think that was the first time an operation like that had been conducted in our country. In fact this entire, the black tornado, this operation against terrorism in Mumbai is the biggest anti terrorist operation which has been conducted in which over 600 hostages were rescued and the number of civilian casualties remained, I was thinking it would probably cross three figures but it remained only in two figures and we lost only two men, the casualties could have been much more. In Nariman house, it was I think you know in which all our training got implemented because over there was a top down insertion that means in that the commandos came from the top. We also had a team which was bottom up. And, we had to make sure, one, there was communication between these two groups and secondly, they did not cross fire at each other.

•Shekhar Gupta: They were being covered by snipers on surrounding buildings.

J K Dutt: Yes, they were being covered and Nariman house as you may have seen, you see its very difficult to get to that building unless you really know the way to that place.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, if you were to make an assessment as an policeman. Forget that you led India’s finest commando force, then your assessment would be that either somebody led them there or…

J K Dutt: or they had visited this place earlier and knew exactly where to go. That is it. And, in fact over there as you know, this is one of the eight places, I believe, in Mumbai where Jews and others do get together. They have their place of worship in that place; they have a little restaurant where the Israeli and Jews come and probably they selected this place because of its proximity to this area.

•Shekhar Gupta: Also proximity to the landing place. So, reconstruct the scene for us at Nariman house.

J K Dutt: Nariman house, well there were terrorists who got in over there; they knew that they would have some foreigners inside, number one. And, number two, these are certain establishments which the terrorists have not been able to hit worldwide and here Nariman house was a target which they could have zeroed in on. This was one. The second is that once they got in over there and the fact that these telephone intercepts you know took place from that building; the person who went over there probably that is the point from which these telephonic exchange was easier, how and why- it may be the grid formation.

•Shekhar Gupta: How and why, you say it may be the?

J K Dutt: You see in some places the connections may be weak, over there may be some facilities available which they had the satellite phones, they had these GPS and other things and over there from there they were able to talk to these men.

•Shekhar Gupta: Their controllers?

J K Dutt: Yes, the only thing again is that there was no demand over there.

•Shekhar Gupta: But, a lot of those conversations were picked up by us.

J K Dutt: Yes, that was there.

•Shekhar Gupta: And, what were those conversations between them and their handlers?

J K Dutt: Well, I think the details would be available with the concerned agency. Hat was of concern to us that was being conveyed to me and we use of it to the extent possible. And, in fact at one time it was suggested that may be I could speak to some body inside and suddenly I got this message don’t try to ring that number, it is that of a terrorist so I didn’t make that call.

•Shekhar Gupta: It is directly…?

J K Dutt: The telephone is with the terrorist. So, my question of talking with the terrorist does not arise so that was the information which we had and now where the operation itself is concerned as I said, it was very peculiar in the sense that we had the slithering..

•Shekhar Gupta: When did you know that you would have to do a top down entry?

J K Dutt: On 27th when I came over here, I had reece the three places and as soon as I saw this Nariman house construction and all the surrounding buildings, I knew we would probably have to use a helicopter. So, I had asked for the helicopter on the 27th itself and the only point which had to be decided was that whether we try for this insertion on 27th itself in the afternoon or on the 28th morning.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, 27th morning is when you have arrived in Bombay?

J K Dutt: Yes, 27th morning we arrived.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, you thought of using the helicopter the same day.

J K Dutt: I knew we that would have to use them and I asked for the helicopters to be made available. So, they were available in Mumbai itself.

•Shekhar Gupta: And, these are not helicopters and pilots that have trained with you?

J K Dutt: No, no not the ones. In fact, the ones who do the slithering, you see the pilot has to be trained in such a way that he is able to hover the aircraft over a particular point.

•Shekhar Gupta: That’s the other question, because it was stiff breeze and a Mi 70 is not known to be the stablest helicopter.

J K Dutt: It’s a very heavy machine and you know every time when one person comes down the load inside the helicopter also changes and the pilot has to be a real expert he should be able to keep the plane absolutely steady. Because a little movement this way or that way, instead of landing on top of the building, the commando may be going 7-8 floors straight down. So, we can’t have that sort of a risk.

•Shekhar Gupta: But, all credit to the pilots that they managed. Because they were not familiar with the site, they were not able to reece the building either.

J K Dutt: Yes, yes, I give full credit to the pilot. No, they didn’t reece. In fact, 28th morning I did an aerial reece and infact at that time we were given information that there was movement of what was said to me was that terrorists are moving on top of Oberoi. So, we did circle this place twice, thrice but I didn’t find any movement. Later on, what we did find was, you know those four hostages…

•Shekhar Gupta: The four survivors…

J K Dutt: Those survivors, they had escaped to the top, they were rescued from there. They had gone and hidden in some boilers which were not operating at that time. So, they were rescued from there, so probably some body might have got information or some body might have waved from there and some one from this height thought that they were terrorists. So, that was the information.

•Shekhar Gupta: Lets conclude the Nariman house operation.

J K Dutt: Yes, now the second terrorist was still inside.

•Shekhar Gupta: One, Gajyendra Singh hit..

J K Dutt: One, Gajyendra Singh had hit, that person was a casualty. That terrorist was killed. There was now shooting taking place, you see how do we know, the intensity of fire changes; once the intensity of fire changes, there are two alternatives. Either the person, the terrorist has stopped shooting for some reason or he is a casualty. So, here we were able to assume that he is a casualty because the way the exchange had taken place we knew we had got one person, the other person was still hiding inside. Again, the layout was not known; in Nariman house we did not even have the plan of the building with us. So, where exactly was he hiding really wasn’t known and the second time when we had to get in we had to blow a hole into the side of the wall and from there we were then able to then lob in our grenades and do some shooting. That is when we got the second terrorist. They were just two of them, after that the shooting stopped completely. So, we knew that alright both these persons had been neutralised.

•Shekhar Gupta: Tell me, in this helicopter operation, there has been some criticism of it internationally that one, it was a very big helicopter. Another of course that the media was not requested to keep it off live v screens because even if terrorists were not watching here the handlers were watching elsewhere. Do you believe they were also telling them to kill hostages at Nariman house?

J K Dutt: Yes, in fact what we did get was that there were two women in Nariman house who had been secured with ropes, their hands and feet had been tied. This was the input which I’d got later that they said that one of them was making a lot of noise. This was before the NSG arrived. So, the order came- finish her.

•Shekhar Gupta: From the handlers?

J K Dutt: Yes, must have been from the handlers. So, that sort of a thing did happen. Yes.

•Shekhar Gupta: But, you didn’t find those bodies battered or beaten up, molested?

J K Dutt: No, again it’s a matter of the investigating agencies and the medico legal opinion which would be able to confirm it but visibly we didn’t find any signs of molestation.

•Shekhar Gupta: But there was also a challenge of landing on a very small rooftop in a very congested area. Were you confident that you people were trained to land on buildings, narrow buildings?

J K Dutt: Oh yes, yes in fact I was absolutely confident that the commandos would be able to do it. Because you know about when I joined the NSG at that time the slithering used to take place on to the ground. And I wanted that they should be able to do it on top of a building also, if need be. So, I talked to the men concerned, I said how can we improve and incorporate this sort of thing into our operation? They said, Sir we can do slithering on top of a building. So, the first time I did it, we did this slithering was on the 10 meter diving board of the swimming pool at Manesar. So, we landed on a platform which was hardly about 10 feet by 6 feet. After that we have done it on some of the structures which we have at Manesar, which we use during the raising day demos and then last year when we had SAARC, at that time we had our chaps, commandos exercising and landing on top of Vigyan Bhawan.

•Shekhar Gupta: Oh, you did.

J K Dutt: Yes, we did. In fact at that time we didn’t know. We had of course sent out the due cautionaries you know notes and things that we will be practicing and doing this but there was a preparation meeting going on inside and all these… some of the delegates and others who were meeting inside rushed out and said what is happening? Something has gone wrong over here? And we told them no, no it’s just an exercise which we are doing here. Same thing we also did at the Oberoi, not the Oberoi sorry at the Taj and the Maurya.

•Shekhar Gupta: In Delhi?

J K Dutt: In Delhi. So, they had done the slithering on top of these building. So, they were used to that.

•Shekhar Gupta: There were many equipments that commando forces around the world have or anti terrorist forces, which would have made your life easier.

J K Dutt: I was asked a very interesting question by a journalist. He asked me, he says if you had to do this operation all over again, is there any way that you could have done it in a better way? Now, it is a loaded question and I thought about it. And, the honest answer is yes. It could have been improved upon, if we had certain other type of equipment.

•Shekhar Gupta: One more question that comes up because this was the first genuinely televised commando operation. Why did you not use gas to knock them off?

J K Dutt: Well, no. We have had this operation in U.K, that was televised. The world center, the twin towers, parts of it were shown and parts of it were not telecast.

•Shekhar Gupta: But this was a commando operation.

J K Dutt: Yes, in this operation quite a bit was shown.

•Shekhar Gupta: Why didn’t you use gas? You could have captured some alive.

J K Dutt: You see gas is something which one has to use very very carefully. We have, firstly only, at present to my knowledge, there is one example of use of gas and this was inside a theatre in Russia.

•Shekhar Gupta: And that was a botch up.

J K Dutt: It had terrible consequences. You see, in a place where there are hostages. In a place like hotel, where you have grown ups, old people, children, everyone around. Ladies, women, there may be some one who is pregnant also.

•Shekhar Gupta: Or some body might have asthma.

J K Dutt: There may be asthmatic, cardiac patients, what effect this gas will have. Instead of having trying to get over the terrorists, we may be causing unnecessary casualties.

•Shekhar Gupta: But, you had gas available to you?

J K Dutt: Yes, we had gas grenades and gas shells. We did have those but I thought it would be advisable not to use them.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, I know that you must have done your reports with the government and you will obviously not talk about them but can I generally say that as a result of this we might get, in terms of the professionals that you commanded, better body armour, better communication equipment as you said these things resting on the cheekbone instead of it being inside the ear.

J K Dutt: Bullet proof vests, helmets, different equipments.

•Shekhar Gupta: And better surveillance equipment?

J K Dutt: Yes, I think we will not only get this but much more because these are the types of equipment which are you know evolving, there are new things coming up and all this for ensuring what the NSG calls Sarvatar Sarvotam Suraksha.

•Shekhar Gupta: So, you have received the compliments and congratulations of the whole country, so it’s my privilege to also have this opportunity to congratulate you, personally.

J K Dutt: Thank you. It was all a part of our duty.

•Shekhar Gupta: It was wonderful to have conversation with you and for you to spare so much time. And also a bit chastening because we are finishing this conversation almost where Kasab and his partner Ismail Khan landed.

J K Dutt: I will say not Kasab, I think this is where terrorism stopped.