It rarely happens that a reporter makes a big blunder, and the blunder leads him to the biggest news story of his career. Perhaps, it was fate.
Exactly 42 years ago, Indira Gandhi was shot by two of her own security guards at her prime ministerial residence around 9:30 in the morning on October 31, 1984. The news spread like wildfire that she has been taken to AIIMS for treatment.
This reporter quickly reached AIIMS riding the pillion of the scooter of his professional friend, Anil Tyagi.
Acting smart, the duo decided not to go to the emergency ward from the main gate. Instead, they entered AIIMS from the side gate located on the Ring Road, and rode straight to the Director’s bungalow. It was an act of sheer stupidity. Why would the Director be at home when the Prime Minister has been shot? That morning, unrelated to the shooting, a top-level routine meeting had already been held in AIIMS to appoint Dr. Sneh Bhargava as the new Director.
When the journos reached the Director’s bungalow, it was locked. This reporter and his friend felt like fools. They had no option but to turn the scooter around and exit the AIIMS campus and re-enter from the main gate leading to the emergency ward. After all, that was the place to get real news. But, fortunately, the reporters did not need to reach the ‘right place’.
Fatefully, on the way towards the side gate, the reporters spotted a bunch of young doctors, with grave faces, talking animatedly with one another. Such a scene is almost surely bound to get noticed by a journalist. They were all standing at the gate of the doctors’ hostel. The reporters quietly parked the scooter and merged into the crowd. The fraternity conversation between the doctors turned out to be a scoop, on a platter, for the reporter duo.
The doctors doing the talking were senior residents who were looking after the emergency ward when Indira Gandhi was brought in. They had examined her themselves. They were sharing the story with their colleagues. Indira Gandhi had been brought dead to the hospital. There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no sign of life. They had informed their seniors at lightning speed.
Meanwhile crowds had begun to build up outside the emergency ward. The AIIMS administration took two quick decisions.
One: They shifted Indira Gandhi’s body to an operation theatre on the sixth floor.
Two: They persuaded all the senior residents present in the emergency ward to vacate their post and go back to their hostel.
Free from duty, those doctors returned to the hostel and were sharing their once-in-a-lifetime experience with their fellows.
After hearing out all the details, this journalist asked gently, “doctor sahib, was Indira Gandhi clinically dead?”. The doctor’s reply was categorical. “Not just clinically, even otherwise she was dead”. Suddenly, the doctor realised that he was interacting with two unknown faces. He wanted to know their identity. The reporters replied politely that they were just passing by, and had joined the group out of curiosity.
Both the journos had got the final news from the horses’ mouth. Now they did not need to go to emergency ward for confirmation.
So they parked the scooter behind the academic block, and entered AIIMS from the rear. There was no one there to stop them.
Walking unhindered through the corridors of the academic block, the two reporters reached the backdoor of the emergency ward, and walked right into it. Before anyone could realise what was happening, suddenly the front door of the emergency ward opened, and Chandra Shekhar walked in. The reporters greeted him with folded hands.
He caught hold of their hands and took them along with him right up to the sixth floor.
This was where Indira Gandhi’s body was being embalmed because it had to be kept in state – at Teen Murti Bhawan – for people to have their last ‘darshan’. Embalming was proving to be a difficult task. The body was riddled with bullet wounds. A total of 36 bullets, fired at point blank range, had pierced through her frail frame. No human being could have survived such a lethal attack.
The doctors walked Chandra Shekhar alone, a little further down the corridor, and whispered something into his ears. He nodded and, with a grim face, returned to leave. The three walked back through the emergency ward, and emerged outside from the front door.
This was where a crowd of journalists and Congress workers had gathered, anxious for news. The AIIMS administration had deliberately misinformed everyone. The plan was to keep the news under wraps to enable Rajiv Gandhi to be smoothly sworn in as the next Prime Minister.
The AIIMS administration had succeeded in withholding the vital information. The journalists waiting outside the emergency ward were under the impression that a wounded Indira Gandhi is being operated upon, to save her life. This reporter’s professional senior, Kumkum Chadha, pointed out towards a van parked some distance away, and it was believed that it had brought blood for the operation. When this reporter gave her the news that Indira Gandhi was dead, she did not believe it.
Rajiv Gandhi returned from West Bengal to Delhi by 4 p.m. President Zail Singh returned from North Yemen to Delhi by 4:30 p.m.
Around 6:30 pm, Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in at Ashoka Hall, Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Meanwhile, BBC had broken the news by 1 p.m. IST.
Major Indian newspapers had brought out special afternoon editions with screaming banner headlines announcing the news.
Doordarshan had been obedient, as expected. It finally put out the news at 6 p.m.
