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Journalism of Courage
Did I Really Do All This? by Vijay Raman
Published by Rupa Publications India Pvt Ltd
Pages: 251
Price: Rs 695
As apt a title as possible, Did I Really Do All This? chronicles the professional journey of Vijay Raman who was one of India’s most celebrated IPS officers. The book was published this year, months after Raman died last September at the age of 72.
Raman is most remembered for leading the operations in which athlete-turned-dacoit Paan Singh Tomar and Parliament attack mastermind Ghazi Baba were killed. He was also a part of the elite Special Protection Group (SPG) that is responsible for the security of Prime Ministers and retired in 2014 as the Director-General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
Along with the tales of the security officials he worked with, Raman also captures the social settings in which he operated and how he and his officers adapted.
Born in Kerala to a homemaker and an Army officer, Raman completed his initial schooling at a municipal school, where he studied till Class 7. It was here that he had his first brush with the caste system, the understanding of which, he says, will later prove to be instrumental in executing the “big” operations, especially in the Chambal region of Madhya Pradesh.
“I had no idea what the family livelihood or source of income was. I began to understand that it was agricultural harvest from the fields owned by our family and that the family patriarch (eldest uncle) had come as it was time to collect the produce …. We could see bags of paddy and a few minions were deputed to sprinkle water around them to sanctify them … There was something about this purification ritual that I found highly distasteful. Why was there seclusion of people who had done the work?” Raman writes.
He completed his schooling in Madhya Pradesh, where a school principal and Erle Stanley Gardner’s character Perry Mason sparked his desire to join the police. Following a stint in the Indian Ordnance Factory Service, Raman cleared the civil service exams in 1975 and subsequently joined the National Police Academy in Hyderabad.
One of the highlights of Raman’s career was the killing of dacoit Paan Singh Tomar in 1982. At the time, he was the SP of Bhind district. The former officer writes that the operation was based on information received by an informer on whom “trust had worn a little thin” as he had “taken me for a ride — literally — three times”. The operation, Raman writes, was also “against the rules” that at the time mandated the ratio of the possible number of dacoits and policemen to be 1:10.
On the night of the operation, October 1, the news of his colleague’s father passing away trickled in but Raman says that sprung the plan into action. “The bereaved young man was barely out of the door when Guraiya (a team member) jumped up, ‘We have to do it!’ It did not matter that we were too few. As per local lore, plans underway when news of a death is received are bound to be successfully executed. It did not even matter that we would be going against our orders!” he writes.
Raman then goes on in great detail about the operation and how congratulatory calls poured in after the operation. The Tomar encounter led to a cascading effect and resulted in the surrender of infamous dacoits, including Phoolan Devi, he writes.
Following this stint, Raman was deputed to the SPG, where he was responsible for the security of four PMs: Rajiv Gandhi, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
From the rugged terrains of the Chambal to 7, Race Course Road, to creating a Guinness World Record by travelling across all five continents to the Kashmir Valley, where he was posted in then CM Farooq Abdullah’s security apparatus, Raman’s storied career continued. It was during his second stint in Jammu and Kashmir, as part of the Border Security Force (BSF), that he came face-to-face with 2001 Parliament attack mastermind Rana Tahir Nadeem, better known as Ghazi Baba.
Raman writes that his connections from his previous stint helped him take down Nadeem. In 2002, Raman, then the BSF’s Inspector General (Personnel) in Delhi, was contacted by an informer who emphasised he must return for an “important mission”, telling him: “Ghazi Baba shehar mein hai (Ghazi Baba is in town).”
“Sir, you have to come. Please come back. You are the only one who can do this. We know you will take care of it,” Raman recalls the informer telling him.
“As so it happened, the incumbent IG BSF in Srinagar had developed a medical condition and was requesting a move to a better place … Well, I was IG Personnel, and when the DG instructed me to issue his posting orders to his hometown, I did so. A few days later, the DG mused to me, ‘Now who shall I send there in his place?’ I instinctively replied, ‘Sir, with your permission, I can go’,” Raman writes.
In mid-2003, Raman was sent to J&K and he began planning the operation. He, along with his informer, studied the area and one day spotted their target.
“I had my hand on the door handle and was opening the door when my informer grabbed my forearm in a tight grip and shouted urgently, ‘Hurry! Drive fast. We must leave immediately,’” Raman writes. The informer then told him that Nadeem comes into the open to make a phone call to Pakistan from a public telephone and always “wears a belt of explosives”.
On the night of August 29, 2003, Raman and his team finally made their move. The Harkat-ul-Ansar commander was tracking movement near his hideout through CCTV cameras and in the ensuing gunfight, two officers were injured. Raman recalls how a message on the militant network confirmed Nadeem’s death. “Victor-2 (Ghazi Baba’s call sign) Allah ko pyaare ho gaye (Victor-2 is no more),” read the message, recalls Raman.
After retiring in 2014, Raman was a part of the Madhya Pradesh High Court-constituted panel that probed the Vyapam scam.
