Operation X by Captain MNR Samant

Truth is stranger and more thrilling than fiction

HarperCollins India brings you

the explosive authentic account of the covert guerrilla operation

that went for the maritime jugular of Pakistan, and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh

THE HEROIC MISSION UNDERTAKEN BY CAPTAIN MNR SAMANT AND HIS BAND OF BRAVE MEN

About the Book

1971. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan has just won an electoral mandate to become the prime minister of Pakistan. Accustomed to treating the eastern wing of the country as a colony, the military dictatorship of General Yahya Khan in West Pakistan launches a genocide against the residents of its eastern wing, flooding India with lakhs of refugees. With the violence in East Pakistan reaching a crescendo, the Indian government is faced with a difficult option: remain a mute spectator to the savagery on its eastern borders, or take action and go to war against its western neighbour.

Thus was born Naval Commando Operations (X) – comprising Indian navy officers and divers, eight deserters from a Pakistani submarine, and a ragtag bunch of educated Bengali youth fleeing the genocide – one of India’s largest clandestine operations, meant to destabilize the West Pakistani efforts to bring East Pakistan to its knees.

Revealed for the very first time, here is the explosive authentic account of the covert guerrilla operation that went for the maritime jugular of Pakistan, and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh.

                           

“I had heard from sources about the exploits of the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini frogmen and the Indian Navy personnel in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. I was then pleasantly surprised to discover that Capt. MNR Samant (now 89), who headed the Naval Commando Operation X, was a neighbour of mine. I was introduced to him by Cdr Kapil, a mutual acquaintance. But at that point I had absolutely no idea how big the Operation X covert effort was, or how enormously significant its results were to the course of the war in 1971.

Operation X was a covert maritime warfare unit established in April 1971 and run directly by the Directorate of Naval Intelligence. The unit, a grouping of submariners, aviators and specialist divers, was tasked with waging strategic guerrilla warfare in the seas and rivers of erstwhile East Pakistan. They fought a tenacious four-month riverine guerrilla war which has few precedents in recent history, and which to a great extent determined the outcome of the 1971 war.

It took us nearly two years to put this book together. A lot of initial research had been done by Capt. Samant and Cdr Kapil, but a lot more additional information was needed. What made our task doubly difficult was the fact that almost fifty years have passed since the 1971 war: most of the principal characters are no longer there and few records have survived. Old diaries, notes and of course extensive interviews with the surviving personnel helped us reconstruct the events of 1971. Cdr Kapil and I toured Bangladesh in 2017 to visit key places associated with the operation and to meet with former naval commandos. The story that emerged was a breathtaking, thrilling one.

We hope this book will pay tribute to all the fearless men and women who fought the war for the liberation of Bangladesh.” – Sandeep Unnithan, co-author, Operation X

“It’s really exciting for us at HarperCollins to be publishing the untold story of Operation X, the covert naval intelligence operation that played a significant role in the 1971 war with Pakistan. Operation X reads like an edge-of-the-seat thriller, but everything in the book is true, and uncovered through meticulous research. The details of this stunning covert operation are now revealed to readers for the very first time. I’m truly grateful to Captain MNR Samant and Sandeep Unnithan for bringing this thrilling true story to light in such a remarkable way. This May, readers will be able to encounter an unrevealed glorious chapter of India’s naval intelligence triumph in the 1971 war with Pakistan, and appreciate the heroism and sacrifices made by the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Navy in the course of the Bangladesh Liberation War.” – Udayan Mitra, Publisher – Literary, HarperCollins India

About the Authors

Captain MNR Samant (1930-2019) was a recipient of India’s second-highest gallantry award, the Maha Vir Chakra, for conspicuous gallantry in the face of enemy fire during the 1971 India-Pakistan War. He was Staff Officer, G1 (Nav Ops X) of this covert naval warfare unit. He passed away on 20 March 2019.

Sandeep Unnithan is an executive editor with India Today where he writes on security-related issues. He is the author of Black Tornado: The Three Sieges of Mumbai 26/11.

HarperCollins Publishers India
www.harpercollins.co.in

Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell

It's Thursday, June 12, 2014 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr Kay Scarpetta is physically still at home though her mind has already left for the Florida vacation she had planned along with her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley. She's in a celebratory mood as it's her birthday and didn't quickly notice the bright copper coins that flashes like shards of aventurine glass on top of the old brick wall behind their house. Dr Scarpetta feels a chill at the edge of her thoughts. Is it someone merely playing a game with pennies or is there more intent to it than meets the eye? Why would someone leave seven shiny Lincoln pennies, all heads up and all dated 1981? Instantly, she realizes that her birthday plans are about to go off beam.

When a deranged sniper is on the loose, Detective Pete Marino of the Cambridge Police insists Scarpetta to examine the scene of a shooting close to her home, not willing to settle for any of her medical examiners or her deputy chief Luke Zenner. The sniper's victim is identified as a high school music teacher, Jamal Nari, who recently shot into the limelight when he was inadvertently placed on a terrorist watch list.

What is baffling about Jamal's death is the tweet announcing it. It came about 45 minutes before he was actually shot. To add to this weirdness is the admission made by one student to the crime, though no one is willing to believe it. Did Leo Grantz really kill Jamal? What is the motive? As Scarpetta and Marino delved deeper into the case they unearthed startling evidences that established connection between a series of deaths in New Jersey and the killing of Jamal Nari in Cambridge. And it is up to Scarpetta and Marino to find out the killer and bring the case to its logical conclusion.

Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell is the twenty-second book in the long-running Kay Scarpetta series. This installment is a notch better than the twenty-first book, Dust (A Scarpetta Novel), though it is nowhere near the readability of the earlier books in the series. While the plot in itself is engaging and the author's fine writing style keeps one going, there are a lot of unnecessary details forcing me to skip pages and paragraphs at regular intervals. If Flesh and Blood were trimmed down to about three hundred pages or less instead of its present staggering 384, I honestly believe that it would have been one of the best Kay Scarpetta novels Patricia Cornwell has written. Sadly, in her bid to write a heavy tome of a book she has added details that are annoying and frustrating for a reader like me.

Stephen King's Revival Will Rock You to Your Bones

This period piece set in the mid-20th century about faith and addiction is so petrifying that author Stephen King was quoted as saying, "It's too scary. I don't even want to think about that book anymore. It's a nasty, dark piece of work. That's all I can tell you." For fans who have missed his trademark spine-chilling harrowing tales with the sedate Mr. Mercedes: A Novel which was more in the mold of a thriller than a horror novel, Revival marks a triumphant return to a genre which is almost synonymous with his name.

Revival by Stephen King is the story of Jamie Morton and Reverend Charles Jacobs, whose lives disturbingly interlock, with serious consequences, for fifty long years. Jamie was only six years old when the Reverend Charles Jacobs with his beautiful wife Patsy and infant baby first set foot in the sleepy hamlet. Like most people in the small Methodist congregation, Jamie quickly bonds with the Minister and his family. Jamie and Jacobs share a lot of things in common, but electronics was their abiding passion. Things seem to be going great for everyone.

Though the Reverend Jacobs is an affable man: well-loved and adored, everything he stands for crumbles under the weight of grief and fury, transforming even his very own life. A gruesome car accident claimed the lives of his wife Patsy and their child, leaving Jacobs devastated. The horror of the accident left an indelible mark on Jacobs. He begins to question his faith and the very purpose of his existence, and buries himself in the pursuit of his hobby - electrical experimentation to tap into the secrets of the universe which is "one of God's doorways to the infinite." Physically and emotionally exhausted, Jacobs's harsh experience drained him of all his faith and belief in God prompting him to give a fiery sermon which would have made an atheist hang his head in shame. He was sacked and asked to leave town.

At the other end, Jamie grows up to be a rhythm guitarist but in a whirlpool of drugs, sex and rock `n' roll, traveling and performing all over. He's no longer the devoted Methodist youth that he once was. He has matured over the years and has become a skeptic. A chance reunion with Jacobs at his electricity-based carnival act sparks off a chain of events which take both Jamie and Jacobs to the edge. Jacobs too is no longer the amiable minister that he once was. He has been transformed almost beyond recognition - a frenzied man intent on unearthing secrets which are beyond the realms of humanity. Jacobs heals people with the electrical inventions he has made but Jamie discovers that there are more to it than meets the eye.

In Revival, horror master Stephen King crafted a tale of two men brought together by faith, separated by tragedy and reunited by their obstinate passion for the extraordinary. It is an unsettling story of a man driven by an unquenchable passion and a scientific curiosity that borders on madness. It is a spellbinding supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat with the frightening portrayal of its main characters and the suspenseful plot which will leave even long-time fans gasping for breath. Revival by Stephen King is designed to rock you to your bones.

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

The maverick Los Angeles Police Department homicide Detective Harry Bosch has come a long way since he first made his appearance in the 1992 detective mystery thriller, The Black Echo. In that premier book of the series a man found in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam was just another statistic for the police department. But when Harry Bosch stepped in it became personal because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war.

Twenty-two years later in his nineteenth avatar in Edgar-winner Michael Connelly’s superbly crafted The Burning Room, Harry Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with an unenviable job of solving a very old case with a lot of twists and impediments. It concerns a case which begins almost ten years earlier with the drive-by shooting of Orlando Merced as he played with his band in Los Angeles's Mariachi Plaza. The bullet that struck him in the spine caused grievous damage leaving him paralyzed.

When Bosch and Lucy get to work they are confronted with lack of evidence which make the investigation all the more difficult. They got a vital lead when an anonymous tipster informed Detective Lucia Soto that the shooting of Orlando Merced is connected to the 1993 devastating fire which took place at the Bonnie Brae apartments that killed nine victims, mostly children. Incidentally, Soto could have been one of the children consumed by that raging fire twenty years ago but survived while some of his friends didn’t. The mariachi musician was a victim of a conspiracy to bury the truth behind the arson as he was believed to have known the people involved. Bosch and Lucy also unearthed connections between the two incidents with the robbery of an EZ Bank.

With powerful people coming into the picture, master storyteller Michael Connelly skillfully maneuvered this compelling police procedural with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Juggling between suspense, crime and mystery, there is no dull moment as Harry Bosch just simply refused to fade into oblivion and reinvented himself through the deft handling of his character by Connelly. Beautifully written and wonderfully paced, The Burning Room is not only for die-hard fans of the series but also for new readers who want to explore the world of Harry Bosch.