Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Escape from Delhi

Was the American smuggler Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr, really the first man to escape from Tihar Jail? Did he indeed drop chocolates, cookies and cigarettes over the jail for the other inmates before stealing away to Pakistan in his Piper Apache plane on September 26, 1963? The legend is not based on facts...  

  
On June 27, 2015, two petty thieves escaped from Delhi’s Tihar Jail after crossing four walls, one of which they dug through. Not really a tunnelling job, but that’s what the papers made it out to be. The jailbreak was also a big deal because, apparently, there had been only five at Tihar until then.
Most papers reported that the first man to escape from Tihar was an American smuggler named Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr.

This is what The Times of India dated July 1, 2015 said:
“The first person to make an unauthorized exit from Tihar was an American smuggler, Daniel Walcott. In 1965, he managed to escape from Tihar in a police vehicle, reached the Safdarjung Airport hangar, boarded his impounded plane and flew out of the country before the jail authorities could react.”

An internet search threw up even more colourful accounts.

This, from Mint:
“In 1962, Daniel Walcott, a swashbuckling Texan who’d won a contract from Air India to carry freight from Afghanistan to India was caught smuggling ammunition in his DC-4s. He was freed after some time in jail, but one of his planes at the Safdarjung airport was impounded. However, he was given access to the airport to pour a little fuel into his plane and run the engines. He managed to do that often enough to accumulate enough fuel for an escape. And escape he did, despite five airport guards hanging onto the tail of the plane. He headed to Pakistan, but not before, as legend has it, circling over Tihar Jail to drop a packet of cookies for his fellow inmates.”


The Tribune:
“THIRTYFIVE years ago, Walcott, an international smuggler, landed at Safdarjung Airport. He was arrested and locked up in Tihar Jail and his plane was impounded. A few days later Walcott escaped from the jail, drove straight to Safdarjung Airport hangar, bluffed his way through and flew off in his impounded aircraft. By the time the authorities woke up and alerted the Air Force, Walcott’s aircraft had crossed the Indian airspace. Walcott’s small propeller aircraft would have taken at least an hour and a half to fly across the Indian airspace but, that was not adequate time for India’s security authorities and the Air Force to thwart the smuggler’s escape.”


The Hindu
In 1962, Walcott flew into India in a DC4 craft. Caught smuggling ammunition, he was arrested, tried and sentenced, being lodged in Tihar. Released conditionally, he would periodically attend to his impounded aircraft at Delhi’s Safdarjung Airport. One afternoon, he simply took off in it. Having circled over Tihar and dropped cigarettes and chocolates as gifts for the inmates, he flew off to Pakistan.


And this from the venerable Khushwant Singh in ‘More Malicious Gossip
“No one knows how he escaped except that he did so in a leisurely style. He simply strolled out of the gates and took a taxi to Connaught Circus where he bought packets of cigarettes and chocolates. He took another taxi to Safdarjung Airport. The constable guarding his plane sprang to attention and saluted the Sahib. The Sahib put gas into his airplane, taxied down the runway and without as much as a “by your leave” from the control tower, was airborne. He flew over Tihar, dropped packets of cigarettes and chocolates for his friends and turned westwards. By the time alarm signals were sounded, Walcott was halfway towards Karachi.”


***

So, did such an audacious jailbreak really happen? Did Walcott veer over Tihar to drop chocolates and cigarettes/ cookies for the other inmates? The case seemed so interesting that I pored over parliamentary debates of that period to get at the truth, and this is what I have found.

a) Walcott did not escape from Tihar. He was a free man on September 26, 1963, the day he flew out.

b) He did not drop any goodies over Tihar. There is no mention of such an audacious act in the debates. Can’t imagine the Opposition leaving a chance to make the government look silly in such a sensational case. Mind you, the case was important enough to merit a half-hour discussion in Rajya Sabha on December 9, 1963. Altogether, Walcott came up for discussion in the upper house 14 times between 1963 and 1970.

This is what really happened:


  • Daniel Hailey Walcott, Jr was a smuggler, but also the president of a small airline—TransAtlantic Airways Corporation 
  • He owned five planes: a small Piper Apache for personal use, and the rest Douglas Skymasters (DC-3s and DC-4s) 
  • He came to India often, and in 1962, Air India contracted him to fly unscheduled freight services between Delhi, Lahore and Afghanistan
  • On one of his trips to Delhi, he was found carrying a cache of undeclared ammunition: “10,000 rounds of 12-gauge ammunition,” according to an LA Times article, and “an item that fetches six times its U.S. price on India’s black market,” according to a 1966 article in Time magazine
  • Walcott was arrested and two of his planes—the Piper and a Skymaster—were seized. Both were placed under guard at Safdarjung Airport. Walcott fled Delhi in his Piper, leaving behind the Skymaster. By 1967, the parking charges for the Skymaster added up to Rs 151,042.50 (yes, 50 paise also mattered)
  • A sub-judge placed an order of restraint on Walcott’s planes on January 31, 1963. After a brief trial he was sentenced to six months’ jail
  • Although Walcott was under arrest, he was treated generously and allowed to go out of India repeatedly “on business” during January, February, March, April and June, 1963
  • He was permitted, even while serving time, to visit Safdarjung and service the Piper to prevent it from turning into junk because of disuse
  • There’s no question of a jailbreak because Walcott was released from jail on September 23, three days before he flew out of Delhi
  • The order of restraint on the planes was vacated on September 25 after Walcott paid up his penalty for violating customs regulations. The police guard was removed from the planes. That same day, the New Delhi magistrate, N L Kakkar, lifted the freeze on his account containing Rs 35,000
  • However, in the evening, Tata Sons moved court to prevent the release of the planes and a sub-judge issued directions for Walcott to not fly out of Safdarjung Airport. A copy of the order was sent to the aerodrome officer the same day. As a result, when Walcott came to the airport in the morning of September 26, the aerodrome authorities denied him permission to fly
  • Still, Walcott made his “unauthorized flight” at 12.17pm. He flew towards Karachi keeping below 3,000 feet altitude to avoid detection by radar. IAF scrambled its Hunters after him, after a delay of 55 minutes. They had orders not to shoot him down. It was a hopeless chase as the fighter pilots were told Walcott was heading for Lahore
  • The government maintained that it had served an order on Walcott to not remove his plane from Safdarjung Airport, but on landing in Karachi he told Morning News in an exclusive interview published on September 29, 1963 that if any such order was served when he was already in the air, he was not aware of it. Walcott said, “The cartridges I was carrying were at best worth £200. The most I could have made by selling them in India was about £400. Can you imagine any smuggler flying all the way from America to India and running an enormous risk for such a ridiculously paltry sum?”
***


Unanswered question

Where did the legend of Walcott air-dropping goodies over Tihar arise? Perhaps in this Time magazine profile of him in 1966.

“Five airport guards tried to stop him by hanging on his tail. He blew them off with a blast of prop wash and headed for Pakistan, but not before circling over the jail to drop a packet of cookies to his fellow inmates. Flying low, he eluded the Indian Air Force jets that were scrambled to bring him back.”

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Judicial probe's findings


Qutab Minar’s slippery and uneven steps were as much to blame for the high death toll as the power failure that plunged the tower into darkness on December 4, 1981. The inquiry committee that examined the causes of the accident criticised both the power utility DESU and the Minar’s custodian ASI in its report.

The probe panel headed by district and sessions judge Jagdish Chandra started work a day after the tragedy and submitted its report a month later, on January 6. The following were its key findings:

1) Power failure inside the tower was one of the major causes of the stampede. The fault was on the part of Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking.

2) The stampede started when a girl slipped somewhere below the Minar’s eighth ventilator.

3) Deaths from suffocation occurred due to the pressure of human bodies lying one above the other.

4) Almost all the steps inside the tower were slippery and uneven, and had dangerous depressions and contours. Poor condition of the steps led to the girl’s slipping below the eighth ventilator. Archaeological Survey of India was to blame for the dangerous condition of the steps.















The Day Qutab Minar 'Burst'

(I published the following article in December 2011. A new version is available here in 2021) 

On December 4, 1981 , Delhi heard that Qutab Minar had “burst”. It was a misunderstanding, but the outcome could not have been worse had the Minar really collapsed. A stampede inside the tower had left 45 dead and 24 injured. It was the most terrible accident in the Minar’s 800-year history, and one of the blackest days in post-Independence Delhi.

Qutub Minar locked up after the stampede
Bags and other possessions of the
deceased piled up outside the gate
leading to the steps

Later that day, a Delhi Administration order was hung outside the tower: “The Qutab Minar will remain closed till further notice”. And it has remained closed to the public ever since. Two generations have grown up without once walking up or looking inside the Minar. The facts of that fateful day are forgotten but hearsay and unfounded theories have made an urban legend of the accident.

So, what really happened that Friday? Why was the city’s grandest living monument reduced to a cold souvenir from the past? I dug through old files for answers.

Grieving relatives  of the deceased
Grieving relatives  of the deceased
 
When the accident happened in 1981, unrestricted access to the 72.5-metre Minar was already a thing of the past. Since 1955, visitors had been allowed to go up to only the first balcony — 29 metres and 154 steps above the ground, which is as high as an eight-storey residential building. While the Minar’s ‘tilt’ and consequent repairs are often blamed for the restrictions, frequent suicides from its upper balconies were the real consideration. Even after the top four storeys were sealed and the entry of unaccompanied visitors prohibited, suicides from the Minar continued at the rough rate of two per year.

But more than these deaths, what the Minar remained famous for was its breathless climb, fantastic views and windy galleries. The diary of British agent Thomas Metcalfe’s daughter, Emily, records fond Qutab memories from the 1840s: “Many a time have I, with Colonel Richard Lawrence, taken a basket of oranges to the top of the Kutab pillar, two hundred and thirty eight feet high, to indulge in a feast in that seclusion…”

Have you heard about the Kapurthala queen who jumped to her death from Qutab Minar in 1946? Watch...



That happy era went out with the lights inside the Minar on December 4, 1981 . The blackout happened just after 11.30 am, when 300-400 visitors were already squeezed inside the tower and a crowd was pushing on from outside to gain entry. The rush was especially heavy because the entry to monuments used to be free on Friday in those days. Amongst the visitors were 58 students from an industrial training institute in Ropar, Punjab; 130 schoolchildren from Pali and Bhankri villages in Faridabad and some other students from YMD College, Nuh.

I made a video about the Qutab stampede. Watch...



Power cuts don’t make news in Delhi , but in the Minar accident case three causes were reported. The first was a conspiracy theory: some miscreants had molested two foreign women tourists at the balcony level and then tripped the lights to trigger chaos. The second: someone had touched an exposed live wire. And the third: a truck had knocked down a power pole outside.

Although the Minar looks like a long, closed shaft from the outside, some light streams in through the balconies. The masonry also has some gaps for ventilation along the steps, and a little light gets in through these. But on that day, the stampede plunged the Minar’s inside into complete darkness. As the screaming started, people who were at the top, crowded close to the balcony window, cutting out most of the light. Those who were near the outer edge of the stairway pressed themselves against the wall to avoid being pulled into the turmoil, and cut out whatever little light that could have come in through the ventilators.      

The painful cries were either absorbed by the Minar’s thick walls or ignored by those outside, for even as the trapped tourists tried to push their way out, climbing over fallen bodies, the crowd at the doorway did not give way, and pushed on to gain entry. They were finally stopped by the inward opening main door that became immovable with the pressure of the desperate crowd behind it.

It was all over in a few minutes, because by 11.45 am the first SOS had been flashed across to the police’s flying squad (it’s another thing that the first cop reportedly showed up at 12.15 pm and the fire brigade only at 12.40 pm). Most of the victims had no outward injuries. After the last autopsy at 1.30 am next day, doctors declared that almost all deaths had happened due to internal crushing and traumatic asphyxia (suffocation). But journalists who looked inside the tower immediately after the accident reported finding blood, broken bangles and glass all over.

Bodies in hospital

With the main door jammed (some said it had been locked up by a guard to stop entry) and the Minar’s tight staircase — 1.5 metres at the bottom, narrowing to 1.2 metres at the first balcony — pitch dark, the rescue effort got delayed. Finally, rescuers got in using a maintenance scaffolding rising up along the Minar’s wall, and drew out bodies through the ventilation ports. There was no telling the living from the dead. Passing vehicles were stopped and the bodies rushed to AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals, where the Emergency wards resembled mortuaries. It was a traumatic sight, and the cop who mistakenly flashed the message “Qutab phat gaya hai” acted on the only plausible explanation that came to his mind.

A day later, a judicial probe started into the causes of the accident. More witnesses were heard. Some said the stampede started when a child got electrocuted and the lights went out. Others maintained that women who were molested at the top of the stairs started screaming and tried to rush down in the blackout. But the most plausible explanation was also the simplest: the lights went out, and somebody near the top of the stairs fell. “We then heard ‘gir gaya ’...”

A tourist had tripped, but in the darkness everybody thought the cry meant Qutab Minar was falling.

Don't forget to explore other stories on this blog, and please share if you like them. You can also leave a comment below 

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