The winter fog of late December lay thick over Delhi, a cold white veil smothering the city's lights and softening even the iron railings of South Block into ghostly silhouettes. The clock above the War Room chimed midnight, its deep metal echo swallowed instantly by the heavy stone corridors. But the room inside was anything but silent. Radios murmured in coded bursts, teleprinters clicked out intelligence fragments, and the faint hum of a massive, disciplined machine preparing for war vibrated in the air like a suppressed heartbeat.
At the center of it all stood Prime Minister Anirban Sen, coat unbuttoned, glass of untouched tea cooling on the table beside him. He stared at the large map pinned across the wall—a vast spread of the subcontinent, its seas and frontiers marked with the sharp red lines of a conflict slowly tightening around Pakistan's unsuspecting throat.
He had waited for this moment for weeks, with the patience of a hunter who knew that one wrong step could invite the entire world to interfere. The West still believed India to be stretched thin, desperately fending off tribal militias in Kashmir. Britain expected caution. America expected restraint. Pakistan expected a blind India.
And Anirban needed none of them to suspect what he already knew:
Pakistan was planning a full-scale war in late January 1948.
A war they believed India was too slow, too naïve, too unprepared to detect.
A faint vibration buzzed through his telephone. The secure line.
He answered without lifting his gaze from the map.
"DESI, go ahead."
A calm voice came through the encrypted receiver.
"Prime Minister… we are inside their naval channel. The P-code has been decoded fully. Ironically, sir… it was easier than cracking half of All India Radio's wartime encryption."
A corner of Anirban's mouth lifted.
"Proceed. Begin first-phase ."
The line clicked dead.
On the far side of the room, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel looked up from his stack of state integration files. " work?"
"Yes," Anirban replied mildly.
It wasn't routine.
It wasn't even close.
Below South Block, buried three floors underground, DESI's signals unit was rewriting the path of the coming war in complete silence.
---
The chamber was dim, lit only by the soft green glow of oscilloscope tubes and the steady blinking of frequency monitors. The air smelled faintly of heated dust and soldering iron. Every man inside wore headphones, their faces illuminated by a constellation of tiny lights.
"Adjust 2.6 megacycles down," the senior cryptographer murmured. "He's opening channel Bravo."
"Frequencies locked," another whispered.
A young wireless officer wiped sweat from his upper lip as he replayed the Pakistani broadcast again. "Sir… they're recalibrating their submarine's depth markers for end-of-year patrolling. We can insert deviation signals in the secondary echo channel."
"And their ships?"
"Running coastal supply sweeps for January positioning. They're moving without conviction. Overconfident."
The cryptographer breathed out slowly.
"Good. Good. Give them confidence. Push that arrogance forward. They need to walk into the ocean with their eyes open."
He didn't know the full plan.
None of DESI's officers did.
Only two people knew the entire design from beginning to end:
the cryptographer who executed the signal work…
and the man who ordered it.
Prime Minister Anirban Sen.
A junior officer looked up from a scrambling pad.
"Sir… about the submarine. Should we begin directional drift tonight?"
The cryptographer hesitated.
Then nodded.
"Begin."
Soft fingers danced over signal keys. A coded insertion. A slight noise adjustment. A false navigational correction disguised as a magnetic deviation alert.
Somewhere in the Bay of Bengal, aboard a creaking British-built diesel-electric submarine flying the Pakistani flag, a radio officer would hear a perfectly ordinary transmission. And he would adjust course, exactly as instructed.
No alarms.
No suspicions.
Only security.
Back in the War Room, Anirban folded his hands behind his back and approached the eastern naval map. The waters off Vizag gleamed with pale pinpoints marking Indian patrol lines.
"You are waiting for something," Patel said quietly behind him.
"Yes," Anirban answered softly.
"What?"
"A mistake."
Patel frowned slightly. "From whom?"
"From some fools," Anirban repeated.
Then, after a pause—
"Though sometimes… mistakes require a gentle push."
Patel blinked. "Meaning?"
But Anirban had already turned away, his expression unreadable in the fog-muted lamplight.
---
Far from Delhi, the Bay of Bengal surged in dark, rolling swells as the diesel engines of HMS Odin, now under Pakistani command, groaned deep within their metal womb. Saltwater dripped steadily from condensation pipes. The air tasted of rust and old oil. The submarine officer on duty, Lieutenant Rahmat, frowned at the radio slate.
"Depth recalibration request—unusual," he muttered.
The senior captain, Commander Saeed, leaned over. "Routine. Proceed."
Rahmat hesitated. The correction was small—barely three degrees. But something in the tone of the echo channel felt… off.
Still, he obeyed.
The submarine adjusted course with a deep metallic shudder, ignorant that the new trajectory nudged them slowly, invisibly toward Indian waters.
Above them, miles away, the surface was calm.
Until the sonar pings began.
Very faint.
Very distant.
Growing stronger.
Rahmat's face drained of color.
"Sir… picking up an unusual echo. Large displacement vessels. Not ours."
Commander Saeed stiffened. "How far?"
"Two… maybe three thousand meters."
"Direction?"
"West-southwest."
Saeed froze.
That direction shouldn't have had anyone nearby.
"Surface," he hissed. "Now."
The submarine groaned as ballast tanks shifted. The hull pushed upward toward the cold surface. Water broke over the periscope. Rahmat's eyes widened.
Searing white searchlights ripped across the waves.
Indian destroyers.
Three of them.
Close.
Very close.
Commander Saeed swore under his breath. "Radio Karachi. Emergency—"
The radio crackled.
Static.
Nothing.
Interference.
Rahmat's eyes trembled. "Sir… they jammed us."
No.
Not jammed.
Hijacked.
Someone else was already inside their channel.
---
Prime Minister Anirban Sen stood in the War Room doorway when the coded telegram arrived. The officer handed it directly to him.
He opened it calmly.
A slow breath.
A deeper silence.
Then he smiled.
A small, almost peaceful smile.
"Sardar-ji," he said softly, "Pakistan's submarine is in Visakhapatnam's restricted waters."
Patel nearly dropped his pen. "What—what did you say?"
Menon, entering with files, froze mid-step. "Impossible. They only have one submarine!"
Anirban handed the slip to him.
"Read it."
Menon read it once.
Twice.
His face turned pale.
"This is… this is a direct violation of territorial seas. Under every maritime treaty, this is an act of aggression."
Anirban nodded. "Yes."
"And we have every right," Menon whispered, "to intercept it."
Patel swallowed hard. "This is… Arre, Anirban… this is the perfect excuse."
Anirban's expression never changed.
"That is why," he said simply, "we will use it."
The order went out at once.
Intercept.
Surround.
Neutralize.
Detain.
---
INS Sutlej cut through the waves like a silent blade, its searchlights slicing the darkness. Sailors rushed across the deck, rifles slung, grappling hooks ready.
The Odin-class submarine bobbed half-submerged, engines whining pathetically. Its crew emerged one by one, hands raised, shivering in the cold wind. Indian marines boarded with hard, clipped commands.
"Hands above your head!"
"Do not move!"
"Step forward—slowly!"
Pakistani sailors trembled as they were frisked, zip-tied, lined up on deck. The metal chilled their bare feet. The oldest among them—white-bearded, exhausted—whispered shakily to an Indian officer, "We… we did not know… how did we…"
The Indian officer didn't respond.
He didn't know that the answer sat several hundred kilometers away in a warm Delhi room, watching the pieces fall into place like beads sliding along a string.
When the final crewmember was marched below deck, Commander Himmatsingh radioed a single sentence to Naval HQ:
"Submarine secured. No casualties. Awaiting transfer orders."
The sea was quiet again.
For now.
—
The air inside the Visakhapatnam naval interrogation chamber smelled of iodine, wet metal, and fear. A single bulb swung faintly above, its yellow light flickering as if hesitant to witness what it illuminated. The Pakistani submarine crew—twenty-eight men in total—sat huddled along the wall, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, their faces pale from cold and humiliation.
Commander Himmatsingh stood opposite them, boots wet from seawater, expression carved from stone.
"You crossed into Indian territorial waters," he said slowly, voice steady, "during wartime vigilance protocol."
Commander Saeed, still trembling slightly, swallowed. "We—we were conducting routine patrol. We lost our signal. The… the coast seemed farther…"
"You received navigational corrections."
"Yes… yes, we did—"
"From whom?" Himmatsingh asked sharply.
Silence rippled through the room.
Then Rahmat, the youngest sailor, whispered, "Headquarters… Karachi. They—sent us a correction."
Himmatsingh's face did not change.
But he knew, in that quiet moment, that whatever had happened out there in the vastness of the Bay of Bengal was not an accident.
Signals do not shift themselves.
Frequencies do not realign on their own.
Submarines do not wander into enemy waters without being gently… invited.
The only conclusion was chilling.
Someone had guided them here.
Someone with mastery over radio, timing, and intent.
Someone with the authority to make such a dangerous gamble.
That someone was sitting inside the War Room in Delhi.
---
The War Room atmosphere had changed.
The fog outside thickened, pressing itself against the windows like a living thing.
Teleprinters spat out reports.
Maps were adjusted with quick hands.
Officers whispered.
Everything moved with quiet urgency.
But at the center, Anirban Sen stood serenely, coat still open, breath steady.
Brigadier Cariappa entered briskly, boots clicking on the marble.
"They captured it cleanly," he announced. "Not a single casualty. Crew fully detained. Vessel inspected. Sir… it's their only submarine."
Patel exhaled in disbelief. "The only one. The only one they have."
Menon rubbed his forehead. "International law is on our side. They trespassed. We have full justification. Britain cannot object."
Saraswati entered at that moment, hair slightly damp from the fog outside, shawl wrapped over her shoulders.
"What's happening?" she asked softly. "Why does the hallway smell like fear?"
Patel handed her the decoded telegram. She read it once, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"A submarine…" she murmured. "Entering our waters. Today."
Her gaze lifted slowly to Anirban.
"Prime Ministerji," she said quietly, "Are they fools to deliver a perfect excuse for us."
After this they discussed how to use this justification to remove threat from there side
---
Thousands of kilometers away, at the Viceroy's former palace—now Rashtrapati Bhavan—Lord Louis Mountbatten slammed his fist on his polished desk with a force that made a nearby flower vase topple.
"THIS IS A BLOODY HUMILIATION!" he shouted, voice echoing across the vast colonial chamber.
His aide flinched. "Your Excellency—"
"How in God's name did Pakistan lose its only submarine inside Indian waters? Inside them! Not near them—inside them?!"
His voice cracked, half-rage, half-disbelief.
He paced near the massive window overlooking the Mughal gardens.
"This Sen… this Sen is making fools out of us. Out of Pakistan. Out of our legacy. This… this bastard ."
He grabbed the report and read the line again aloud:
"ODIN-CLASS SUBMARINE CAPTURED BY INDIAN NAVY; ALL CREW DETAINED WITHOUT CASUALTY."
"How?" Mountbatten hissed. "How does India do this? They're supposed to be a new nation—fragile! Vulnerable! Meant to stumble!"
The aide swallowed. "Sir… London is awaiting your official reaction."
Mountbatten pressed his fingertips to his temples.
"My official reaction," he whispered, "is that Pakistan is being outplayed like schoolchildren."
He sighed deeply, shoulders sagging in utter frustration.
"And the worst part? Anirban Sen hasn't broken a single law."
---
In London, at Whitehall, British intelligence agencies had barely opened their morning files when the memo from the High Commissioner arrived.
Rear Admiral Wilcox, head of the Eastern Desk, let out an incredulous laugh.
"They sailed into Indian waters?! What are these idiots doing? Following seagulls?!"
A younger analyst chuckled into his tea. "Sir, with respect—Pakistani navigation officers are not exactly seasoned. They inherited the worst of the Royal Navy's leftovers."
Wilcox grinned. "And now India owns their only bloody submarine. What a spectacle."
Across the table, another officer muttered a line that earned roaring laughter:
"At this rate, India will conquer Pakistan without firing a single bullet. Just give them maps."
---
Meanwhile, inside a smoky London pub that smelled of stale beer and the ashes of fading empire, an MI6 field officer sat across from a CIA operative, two pints between them.
" Naval assets capture by India," the CIA man said, shaking his head. "Your Pakistani investments are looking shabby."
MI6 officer smirked. "They're idiots. Absolute, staggering idiots. They think they're planning some glorious January strike. India doesn't know, apparently."
Both men laughed.
The CIA operative wiped a tear.
"Christ, if they screw this up, Britain may actually have to repay the sterling debt."
MI6 officer groaned loudly.
"Oh, don't remind me! Look, Pakistan better win this war. Or at least drag India enough to tie them down. Otherwise—"
He lowered his voice.
"—otherwise Sen will have our chaps eating humble pie before Parliament."
"We'll toast to Pakistan then," CIA man said with a grin, raising his glass.
"To their coming war. May they give India a hard punch."
The MI6 officer clinked his glass.
"May they save Britain's bloody treasury."
Both men burst into laughter.
Neither of them knew they were already laughing over a corpse.
Pakistan just hadn't realized it was dead yet.
---
Back in the Bay of Bengal, the Odin-class submarine was being towed toward Visakhapatnam Naval Base. Pakistani sailors sat handcuffed on the open deck of the Indian destroyer, the cold wind cutting through their wet uniforms. Not one dared speak. Not one dared ask how they had wandered into enemy waters so blindly.
Commander Himmatsingh watched them.
He felt no satisfaction.
Only a cold understanding.
"This," he murmured to his lieutenant, "was no accident."
The lieutenant whispered back, "Sir… do you think—"
"Yes," Himmatsingh replied. "Someone nudged them. Someone with reach."
His gaze hardened as he stared out at the dark waters.
"Someone who plays war like chess.".
—
The sun had not yet risen when a second telegram struck Delhi like a cold blade. It was 5:42 a.m.—the hour between darkness and dawn when the city lay silent, dreamless, unaware. But in the Naval Operations Center, a breathless young radio runner burst through the heavy steel doors.
"Urgent transmission!" he shouted, voice cracking.
Vice Admiral Katari looked up sharply. "From which command?"
"Bombay Naval Sector, sir. Emergency flag."
Katari snatched the paper. His eyes narrowed as he read. Then he whipped his head toward the adjutant.
"Wake the Prime Minister. And Patel-ji. Immediately."
---
South Block was still half-asleep as officers rushed through its normally quiet corridors. The fog outside was a thick white wall, turning the world into a ghostly blur. Inside the War Room, lamps flickered on one by one, illuminating maps, instruments, and the stern faces of men dragged suddenly back into battle.
Patel arrived first, coat thrown hastily over his dhoti, glasses fogged. "Another incident?" he asked sharply.
Katari nodded grimly. "Something crossed the 14°7' line. A large vessel. Confirmed Pakistani registration."
Patel's jaw tightened. "A warship?"
"No, sir," Katari said. "Worse."
Menon entered next, breathless. "What is worse than a warship?"
"A supply and troop transport vessel," Katari replied. "Large tonnage. Possibly carrying munitions. And it crossed deep into Indian waters."
Patel stared at him. "How deep?"
"Eight nautical miles past the limit."
Patel gripped the table so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Impossible. No captain makes that mistake in peacetime. Not even a fool."
"Unless," a soft voice said from the doorway, "he is listening to the signals. That he believes to be accurate"
Everyone turned.
Prime Minister Anirban Sen walked in, fully calm, fully awake, as if he had been standing there for hours.
His gaze swept the room once, absorbing everything without needing further explanation.
"Where is the vessel now?" he asked.
"Within interception radius of INS Delhi and INS Ranjit," Katari answered. "We can board within twelve minutes."
"And the crew?" Anirban asked.
"Likely armed," Katari said. "But poorly trained. They won't resist a full boarding."
Anirban nodded.
"Proceed."
No raised voice.
No excitement.
Just a single word—quiet, decisive, lethal.
Patel watched him with an expression that hovered between awe and unease.
---
Out at sea, the waves were dark blue knives under the moonlight. The Pakistani merchant-naval hybrid vessel—PNS Shaahin—moved sluggishly, its engines coughing with age. The captain, a stout man named Bashir, paced nervously on deck.
He checked his compass again. South-southwest. Clear.
He checked the radio. No noise.
He checked the sky. No storm.
The radio crackled suddenly.
"Approaching safe corridor. Maintain present heading. Indian patrols diverted. You have clearance."
He exhaled in relief. "Good. Good."
But the voice wasn't Pakistani.
It wasn't Indian.
It wasn't even human in the familiar sense.
It was DESI, in a basement room three floors below South Block, using a tone generator matched perfectly to the Pakistani naval operator's frequency signature.
Shaahin had sailed straight into the mouth of the lion.
---
INS Delhi spotted the vessel at 01:08 hours.
Deck lights snapped on. Sirens blared.
"This is the Indian Navy," the loudspeaker thundered across the waves. "You have violated our waters. Cut engines immediately!"
The Pakistani crew panicked.
Bashir shouted, "Who changed our coordinates?! Why are they here? WHERE ARE WE?!"
Before anyone could answer, floodlights washed over the ship. Indian commandos rappelled down ropes like swift shadows, boots slamming onto the deck with a metallic thud.
"Drop your weapons!"
"Hands on your head!"
"Do not move!"
"Lie down—NOW!"
The Pakistani sailors froze, shocked, disoriented. Bashir tried to protest, voice trembling.
"We—we were blown off course! We didn't—"
A commando cut him off. "Save it. You crossed the line."
Within minutes, the Karakoram was secured.
Crew detained.
Cargo seized.
Evidence photographed.
The Indian boarding officer radioed in:
"Transport vessel neutralized. All personnel detained. No resistance."
"Any casualties?" Naval HQ asked.
"None, sir."
"Good. Bring them in."
The seas fell silent again.
Two mistakes.
Two perfect excuses.
Two nails in Pakistan's coffin.
---
Back in Delhi, hours later, the War Room vibrated with a tension so thick one could almost touch it. Patel stared at the wall, where both incidents were marked with red pins.
"Two incursions," he muttered. "Two violations within three days."
Menon rubbed his forehead. "This looks deliberate. If someone didn't know better, they'd think Pakistan is begging to be destroyed."
Saraswati stepped forward, her eyes locked on Anirban.
"Prime Ministerji," she said quietly, "once could be coincidence. Twice is design."
Patel turned slowly. "Design?"
Her gaze did not waver.
She stepped closer to Anirban.
"Two Pakistani vessels… guided straight into our waters. And only DESI had unusual activity that nights."
The room went silent.
"Tell me," she whispered. "Was this your doing?"
Every heartbeat in the War Room seemed to pause.
Every breath held.
Every officer turned to face the Prime Minister.
Anirban looked at her.
No words.
Just that smile.
That slight, calm, devastating smile.
Saraswati inhaled sharply.
Patel closed his eyes, murmuring, "Ram… Rama…"
Menon took a step back. "My God."
No confession.
No denial.
The silence was louder than thunder.
---
In Rashtrapati Bhavan, Mountbatten had reached a level of fury that would have frightened even Churchill.
He paced like a caged tiger, coat half-off, hair undone.
"Two vessels—TWO!—lost inside Indian waters?!" he roared. "How incompetent is Pakistan's navy?!"
His aide tried to calm him. "Sir… perhaps they made navigational errors—"
"Errors?!" Mountbatten exploded. "You think submarines and transport vessels simply lose their way like drunk motorists?!"
He hurled the report across the room. Papers scattered like wounded birds.
"This Sen… he is not reacting even now when I send him letters to release Nehru and his friends, and this thing. what is he thinking I don't know, do you know what it means?"
His voice dropped to a deadly whisper.
"We are failing to predict his movements. We don't even know if he had his own intelligence agency if he has it . Then we don't know it's full capabilities. And we—WE—are blindfolded in the audience."
---
In London, foreign intelligence agencies had a field day.
MI6 analysts howled with laughter as the incident report arrived.
One officer slapped the table. "They sailed into Indian waters AGAIN?! Someone buy those idiots a map!"
Another joked, "Maybe they thought India was giving a Christmas sale on arrest warrants."
CIA analysts weren't much kinder.
One murmured, "If Pakistan fights like this in January, Britain might be forced to repay their sterling debt."
Laughter erupted around the table.
"God forbid," another CIA man said dramatically. "Imagine Whitehall actually honoring debts!"
---
And in a dim corner of a London pub, the same MI6–CIA pair raised another glass.
"To Pakistan's upcoming war," the MI6 officer said dryly.
"To saving Britain from bankruptcy," the CIA man replied.
"And to India," the MI6 man added, smirking, "for being so clueless."
They drank.
A continent away, in Delhi, Anirban Sen closed the War Room door behind him, hands clasped behind his back.
He wasn't clueless.
He wasn't even surprised.
He had planned the mistakes.
He had planted the excuses.
He had shaped the path.
And now, the sea lay open before India.
The trap was complete.