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  In the second-last compartment, Simar sat quietly in the corner and observed everything. Most of her body parts were stationary except her eyes, neck muscles and brain. She assessed both men from head to toe. She noticed the number of weapons they had on their body, their distance from her and between each other. The big guns they had in hands were AK47s and they carried two desert-eagle-like small guns tucked in their pants. Extra magazines for both guns could be seen in the pockets of the cargo pants. One medium sized blade hung in a cover on the waist of both men. One of them was standing right in front of the exit door and the other was near the door connecting the next compartment.

  One pulled out a plastic bag from his backpack and gave it to a scared man standing next to him.

  “Put your phone in here and collect everyone’s phone in this. Everybody, switch off your phones and give it to him.”

  All passengers including Simar had to give away their mobile phones. After collection, he said, “If I find someone with the phone I will kill that person right away.” Nobody said anything as they all had given their phones already. He was quite satisfied that nobody has their phone with them. He moved to his position.

  “Do something, Simar.” Simar’s consciousness was compelling her again and again. But the brain was doing its own calculations. “I am not close enough to attack anyone. If I do something from a distance, he could fire a bullet on me even if he misses me, it will hit another passenger. The only way out is to draw him closer.”

  She looked around and found an old lady sitting on the floor. She was terrified and was very uneasy.

  “Aunty, please take my seat, I will sit on the floor,” Simar said to that lady and stood up from her seat.

  Both men saw this. It was obvious that one of them will come and stop them from doing any movement.

  “Hey, you, stay where you are otherwise I will shoot you both!” The man standing near the connecting door shouted.

  “I am just offering my seat to this poor old lady, nothing else,” Simar replied casually.

  “Okay, do it fast!” He signaled with his gun to the lady to sit on the seat.

  During this little conversation, he came near Simar to ensure everything was under control. That’s what she wanted. As soon as the lady sat down, the man pushed Simar with his gun to sit down.

  Simar turned around very fast. With the left hand, she held his gun strongly and pushed it towards the roof. With the right hand, she punched on the nose. The blow on the nose was very sudden and strong that man lost his grip on the gun. It happened very fast and within a fraction of a second, Simar had his gun.

  She held him tight from his hair and pushed forward so that he could act as a shield from that second man who now had his gun pointed at her. She released this man’s hair and held AK47 with both hands with the right index finger on the trigger.

  “Hands up. Don’t move otherwise I will empty this gun into your body.” Simar pressed hard the gun against his back.

  This man did as she said, elevated his both hands in the air.

  She shouted to the second one, “Drop your gun otherwise I will kill your friend.”

  “Do whatever you like a girl; we are here to die.” The second man did not lower his gun and gave a smile instead.

  As soon he finished his dialog she sneaked the gun from the armpit of the man she was standing behind and fired.

  “Wish granted!!”

  The bullet hit him in the center of his forehead. He fell on the floor right away.

  “I don’t have time for long conversations with terrorists.” The rest of the passengers looked at Simar and then at the dead man; it was a very extraordinary situation for most of them.

  The second man saw him dying and got angry. He was about to turn around when Simar hit him on the head with the handle of the gun. He fell on the floor.

  She pointed the gun at him and asked, “How many of you are on this train, what type of weapons you have and who is your leader?”

  With a gun pointed at his face, he couldn’t reach out to his blade or other guns. He turned his neck to one side and put the side of the shirt’s collar in the mouth. He sucked something from there. Simar tried to stop him but he died instantaneously, and white froth filled his mouth.

  The passengers were stunned by what just happened. Simar looked around and everybody was staring at her.

  “Don’t worry, I am a cop. This is a hostage situation. We don’t know how many terrorists are there in the other compartments. They might have some explosives as well.”

  One middle-aged man interrupted, “So are we going to die today?”

  “Yes!!”

  Everybody looked at each other; they all were frightened already and her saying ‘yes’ made them afraid even more.

  “If we get afraid we are going to die for sure, please calm down and listen to me.”

  All sat down quietly but with a lot of fear in everyone’s eyes, what else they could do. She picked up the bag of mobile phones. She identified her phone from the bag and took it out.

  She gave the bag to the same man who collected and asked him to give everyone’s phones back. While he was distributing the phones, she called the police headquarters.

  The operator redirected her call to the room where Sinha was keeping an eye on everything with his team.

  “Sir, Simar madam is on the phone.” One of the team members said.

  “Put her on, fast,” Sinha said impatiently and left everything he was doing, so did Sharma.

  “Hello, Simar, it’s DGP Sinha. Are you there?”

  “Yes Sir, I can hear you. I am in the hijacked metro.” Everyone in the room heard her over the speaker. Sharma felt a bit relieved to know she was alive.

  “Are you alright Simar?” Sinha asked.

  “Yes Sir, I am okay. The men who hijacked are heavily armed. They have high-end weapons. Any chance I can get a backup as I don’t know how many they are.”

  “I wish I could provide you with backup, I would come for your help too, but they have their men in the control room as well, the metro is under their control and they are not going to stop it until their demands are met. Providing backup in this running metro is very hard and our one wrong step can put the life of 1500 passengers in danger.”

  “It means something has to be done from the inside.”

  “Don’t do anything which endangers your or other passenger’s life.”

  “Yes sir, I will keep that in my mind.”

  “By the way, what is the situation inside there?”

  “People are very frightened. They took phones from everyone and threatened to kill. This metro has eight carriages and if they have two men in each there might be about sixteen terrorists, approximately.”

  “How do you know they have two in each? I mean I know you are inside but if they took the phones how are you calling us?”

  “Our compartment had two armed men as well. Don’t worry they are dead now. I got my phone and their weapons.”

  Sinha looked at Sharma with some shine in his eyes.

  “That’s good, but your safety is important for the department. You are our one of the best officers Simar, we can’t afford to lose you.”

  “I understand Sir, but what is the point of my presence here, if they get what they want.”

  Sinha could not find an answer to that.

  If possible, send the photos of those terrorists you killed, we can do facial recognition and find out the origin of this whole drama.”

  “Don’t worry Sir, I will send their photos to your phone. I will call you later.” She hung up.

  Straight after that conversation, Mr. Sinha’s phone beeped with a message.

  “What the…” those words came out of his mouth when he saw his phone.

  “What happened, Sir?” Sharma asked.

  “Look at t
his Mr. Sharma; Simar sent a photo of terrorists, but it is a selfie!” He gave his phone to Sharma to have a look. Simar sent two selfies, one with each dead terrorist. She made a funny face and did thumbs up with a man she shot. In the second selfie, she had her nose pinched with one hand as if she was avoiding the bad smell of froth in the mouth of a dead terrorist.

  Sharma saw and smiled. He gave the phone to a technician to work on the photos.

  “How can be she so calm and funny to do this, Mr. Sharma?”

  “She is different, Sir. She is not an ordinary human being.” Sharma replied.

  In the train, after sending selfies, she drew her attention from her phone to the people who were looking at her.

  She stood on a seat and started talking loud enough so that everybody in compartment could hear.

  “Who wants to go home?”

  A little boy raised his hands. Then one after the other everybody raised their hands.

  “Alright, if anybody wants to go home you need to work for it. If we keep on sitting here and do nothing, nobody will go home.

  It’s time to be a hero for yourself and your family waiting for you at home. I am going to fight with them, who is with me?”

  She looked at everybody. The same boy who raised hand first came forward, “I am with you, didi.”

  Everybody including Simar was mesmerized with the courage of the little boy. She looked at him and again she looked at the rest of the people, all of them raised their hands.

  Then an old man asked, “What we have to do?”

  “Alright, we need some strategy here because we are not sure about their number and what weapons they have got. First of all, everybody put your phone on vibration mode.”

  Everyone followed her instructions.

  Then Simar asked all the young men and boys to come forward. They were only five in total. Two average looking men and three college students.

  “Does anybody know how to shoot?” Simar asked those five guys.

  One said, “Yes, I learned in the NCC camp.”

  ‘Great!’ Simar gave one gun to him.

  “We are in the second last compartment, it is a good idea to secure the last one before we move forward.” Those men agreed.

  “Don’t call your boyfriends, girlfriends or you mothers until this all finishes. Exchange the numbers with each other. Make a conference call and stay in contact with each other. It’s good if you use earphones or a Bluetooth device. Who has got Bluetooth earphones?” One girl had, and she swapped her earphones with Simar.

  There sat a middle-aged fat lady in saree who was watching everything through her thick spectacles. Simar walked to her and asked, “What do you do for a living?”

  “I work in a call center. How can I be helpful to you?”

  “Just do what you do every day. Make some calls. I will put you through the police headquarters, you need to update them regarding everything happening here.” She took that lady’s phone and made a call to police headquarters. She identified herself and handed over to the lady for further updates.

  She walked to that old man and said, “You need to give the same lecture I just gave you guys when we go to another compartment.” He did not say anything but nodded his head in agreement. It was time for action, Simar tied a strong knot of her dupatta at her waist and ran it across her shoulders. She held her phone strongly at the knot. The other shoulder had a belt of AK 47 which hung at her back. She tucked the M9 in her salwar’s opposite side of the knot of the dupatta. With a blade in her hand, she led the attack.

  When she was about to open the door, she looked behind at the people. She noticed the fear in the eyes of men. She stopped and turned around.

  She said, “I know you all are afraid, so am I. The only difference is my wish to get out of this situation is bigger than my fear. All wars and fights are fought with courage, and it is all about how you think. It is not about how many they are or how strong they are, this is all about courage and your desire to go home.”

  She continued, “Someone said power does not lie here,” pointing towards her biceps, “it lies here,” she pointed to her head. I mean power is what we think, it’s not how we physically are. No matter how strong the opponent is, if we believe in ourselves, we are going to win.” Her words gave a little courage to her army of five men.

  She opened the door connecting to the other compartment. The terrorist standing next to it turned to see who it was. Simar stabbed him in the abdomen with the blade as soon as he turned. The other man did not see this drama as he was speaking to someone on a walkie-talkie. Simar had put her one hand on the mouth of the man she stabbed, which prevented him to alert his associate.

  All passengers got shocked to see that, but nobody spoke anything. Simar pushed the blade even further to make sure that the terrorist was dead. All his clothes got saturated with blood in no time. She left the dragger in place and held him from the collars of the shirt to slow down his fall.

  She stayed down giving the opportunity to the boy behind her, with the gun, to shoot the second terrorist. He did the same making no mistake. The two bullets, one in the chest and another in the abdominal area caused immediate death to the second man as well.

  The people in that compartment were shocked to see that. They did not know what was happening. Then Simar brought that old man forward to do the talking. Simar and the other men from her group started to remove the weapons from the dead bodies of the terrorists while the old man explained everything to the people.

  Simar saw the second terrorist had a belt around his waist which had a few pockets attached to it. She removed it and put that on her waist.

  This helped to hold M9 better and the little pockets had spare magazines already.

  On the other side, more and more policemen gathered outside the control room. Commandos were called in, but they were on standby. All the stations on the route of the hijacked metro were evacuated and police had taken positions.

  Zahid went to one station where the metro was supposed to pass shortly.

  He rang Simar. Simar was busy adjusting her belt; she felt the vibration and answered the phone.

  “Hello Simar, Are you alright?”

  “Yes Sir, I am okay. We have secured the last two compartments. Two more terrorists are down.”

  As they spoke, Zahid could see the approaching metro.

  “You are doing an exceptional job, Simar. I wish I could help you. I am here at the station on which you are about to approach.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but you can’t help me in a running train. I am in the last carriage by the way.”

  She moved to the glass door as the train entered the platform. As the train passed he could see gunmen standing inside. The train moved fast except for the last carriage. His eyes found Simar standing in the last coach. Those couple of seconds were the slowest seconds of his life. He kept on looking at the train until it disappeared.

  “What is the situation outside?” Those words of Simar brought Zahid back from the time pause.

  “Things are not very promising. They have hostages in the control room as well. They want their leader out of the jail; they want heaps of money and a safe passage. Negotiations are going on.”

  “Okay, gotta go now. Please keep me updated.” Simar said when she realized the speech of that old man was finished.

  “Okay, take care, Simar.”

  As soon as he hung up, he screamed out loud with frustration and helplessness.

  The news of the hijack had spread everywhere by now. This was on all channels, but all the media was kept away from the stations and the control room. No live coverage was allowed. Meetings were going on among high-level ministers. Serious considerations started to release the terrorist leader and fulfill other demands. Armed forces were alerted. Borders of the city were sealed. Supervision was beefed up at the national borde
rs.

  Inside the train, the situations were getting intense. Terrorists were giving a very hard time to the passengers. Those who spoke anything got their ass kicked. They killed a few people as well to terrorize the rest of the passengers. In the first compartment, there was a middle-aged couple among the passengers. The husband held one hand of his nearly eight-month pregnant wife firmly, to give some reassurance. It was quite uncomfortable for her to sit as a hostage in her late stage of pregnancy but there was nothing much she or her husband could do.

  In the last compartment, things were different. More people joined Simar in her courageous deed. Two compartments were secured already; it was time to go for the rest. Simar came back to the carriage in which she was originally in. Now she had more men on her side.

  The number in her army grew to twelve. They had taken the weapons from dead terrorists. Some passengers held guns, and some had blades. All terrorists had to update the team leader in the first carriage after every few minutes that everything was alright in their area or not. He had the received latest updates from all the compartments but the last two.

  He asked his men in the third last carriage to check what was wrong with the last two. One went closer to the window and peeped through the connecting window. Everything looked normal. People sat on the seats and on the floor as if there was nothing wrong. Nobody looked towards the connecting door. The only thing he noticed that he could not find his fellow men. He looked around through the glass window of the door, but they were nowhere.

  This was enough reason for him to go and check the situation by himself. He opened the door and entered the carriage carefully with his gun ready. He took a few steps further and heard a girl’s voice from behind.

  “Hey handsome, what are you looking for?”

  He turned around. It was Simar who sat on the floor.

  He pointed the gun towards her and said, “Don’t be smart and tell, have you seen two men with guns?”

  “Yes, they are here.” She pointed towards the toilet.