Nawaz Mistry was an Indian-British RAW agent and Blackwater security consultant who was based in London. In 2015, she teamed up with RAW agent Daniyal Khan to eliminate the leadership of Lashkar-e-Taiba in revenge for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in a classified operation known as "Operation Phantom", and, while they were successful, only Mistry managed to return to India alive, as Khan was gunned down by the Pakistan Navy as he and Mistry attempted to swim to the safety of Indian territorial waters from their intercepted fishing boat.
Biography[]
Mistry and Daniyal Khan in London
Nawaz Mistry was born in Mumbai, India, the daughter of the middle-class insurance agent Nauzun Mistry, who used to treat her and her sister Nadia to the tea room at the Taj Hotel whenever they had childhood achievements. She initially worked for the Red Cross, taking part in relief efforts in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan following the devastating 2005 earthquake. During that time, she first came across the Lashkar-e-Taiba trainer Sajid Majid, and, after the 2008 Mumbai attacks (during which LeT burned the Taj, causing Mistry to recall her childhood and seek vengeance for the tarnishing of its memory), she decided to join India's RAW intelligence wing to avenge the massacre. She later decided to accept Blackwater's offer of employment as a security consultant in London, and, while there, she was contacted by RAW agent Daniyal Khan in 2015 and promised £10,000 if she could identify Majid for Khan. She met Khan at the England-Pakistan cricket match, where they tailed Khan to Charing Cross Station and, from there, to his apartment. Khan duped Mistry into asking Majid for a light for her cigarette, supposedly to confirm his identity, but, in reality, to subtly persuade Majid to light his own cigarette and walk into his gas-filled apartment with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Majid was killed in the ensuing explosion, and Mistry was infuriated at Khan for lying to her about her mission and his own mission. Khan later reached out to Mistry while he was in prison in Chicago, obtaining a loan of $200 from her in order to purchase batteries containing a poison which he could use in an assassination attempt on LeT operative David Headley. Headley was transferred to a high-security prison in Texas before the assassination could occur, but Khan met with Mistry in London to plot his next move against LeT. He learned that Mistry was planning to travel to Beirut, Lebanon with Blackwater to provide security and materials to Syrian refugee camps, and he pointed out the coincidence of LeT being involved in the Syrian Civil War as well.
Khan and Nawaz in Beirut
When the two met up in Beirut, Khan met with Mistry and told her of his intent to get into Syria and meet Lashkar's leaders. Mistry laughed and told Khan that Syria was a warzone, and that every self-styled jihadi was going to Syria to fight. Mistry said that Khan could join the jihadists, as nobody asked for a visa or passport. Khan retorted that Mistry knew where he could find Lashkar's people, and that trying to search for them himself would take longer. Mistry said that she did not know where Lashkar's leaders were, and that Blackwater was only in Syria to protect the refugee camps, but Khan interrupted her and said they both knew the real nature of Blackwater's activities: America supplied weapons to jihadis in Syria (including Lashkar) through Blackwater while using the refugee camps as a front. Mistry gave up her pretense and reluctantly agreed to help Khan, and they travelled to the Syrian border together. Shortly after arriving at the refugee camp, Mistry told Khan that the ISI had already informed Lashkar about him, and Khan was taken across the border by a taxi driver, Alam. However, Khan was betrayed and kidnapped by the Lashkar fighters he met up with, and Alam alerted Mistry to this betrayal. Mistry assembled a team of Blackwater mercenaries and came to Khan's rescue, freeing him from his captors and aiding him in tracking down and killing the Lashkar commander Mukul Qureshi before he could send Khan's incriminating confession video to the ISI.
Khan and Nawaz in Lahore, talking about Nawaz's childhood
As a result of the unexpected escalation in violence, the RAW decided to end Khan and Mistry's mission, but Khan resolved to continue with the mission, and Mistry - after hearing of the reason for Khan's wrongful dishonorable discharge (he agreed to embark on Operation Phantom to redeem his reputation) - agreed to help him enter Pakistan. She used her Red Cross connections to ensure that both of them entered the country under the guise of being medical workers, and they checked into a hotel in Lahore, from which they plotted the assassinations of their last two targets - Haaris Saeed and Sahabuddin Umavi. Mistry recruited a nurse, Amina Bi, to assassinate Umavi to avenge the manipulation and death of her son Arshad Bi, a Lashkar suicide bomber. This occurred on the same day as Saeed's assassination by Khan, who, after failing to blow him up with a rigged microphone, shot him after a car chase from a political rally. Mistry, Khan, and their accomplice Khalid Middat escaped Lahore in Middat's car, with Mistry pretending to be pregnant in order for the trio to bypass a security checkpoint set up by the ISI to prevent the fugitives from fleeing the city. However, the ISI quickly gathered intelligence from the people the group had interacted with in Lahore, and they deduced that they were planning to escape the country via the docks of Karachi, where the RAW had arranged for a boatman to take them by sea to Mumbai. Khalid was killed when Pakistani checkpoint guards recognized the car's license number from the interrogation of Khalid's employee Shehzad Gulati, forcing Nawaz and Khan to flee to the jetty by themselves.
Nawaz attempting to reach for Khan's sinking body
From Karachi, they hopped aboard a fishing boat captained by an RAW associate, but the boat was intercepted by the Pakistan Navy just ten minutes from international waters. The two were forced to jump ship and hide underwater, but, when the Pakistanis saw their air bubbles, they fired machine-guns at them, striking Khan. The Pakistanis then left with the fishing boat in tow, and, while Mistry survived unharmed, Khan succumbed to his wounds after asking Mistry to go to the Taj Hotel and drink two cups of tea (one for him), referencing Mistry's retelling of her childhood story, and their plans to celebrate their success with tea at the hotel. A distraught Mistry was rescued by an Indian Navy submarine, and she was saluted by the sailors as she headed below deck, as the sailors recognized her own bravery and role in the success of the operation. Mistry fulfilled her promise to Khan by visiting the hotel, and, while she sat outside, a tea vendor served her tea for free, saying that he had heard the news of the bringing to justice of the Mumbai attacks' masterminds, and that he believed that the soul of his son, a waiter at the Taj who had been killed in the attacks, would finally be able to rest in peace.