No, no. All the senior CBI officers were present, and they were calling the chief. He said he would come the next morning and only then did we need to go ahead with the operation. He could have given the order, but that didn't happen.

What could be the reason why he asked you to wait?

There is no reason. He wanted to be there when the operation happened. Every senior officer would like to be on the spot and personally supervise an operation. But in certain circumstances, when you do an operation, the man on the spot should be given the permission to operate according to his plan. But that didn't happen because he (D R Karthikeyan) wanted to plan it and do it himself.

He asked for more commandos to come. More commandos hardly make any difference. So, we had to wait for at least 36 hours.

As you waited, did you have an inkling that you would not be able to catch them alive as they were all LTTE men?

We were hoping we would be able to catch them alive even if a couple of our guys got killed. He (Sivarasan) had an AK-47, a pistol and a cyanide vial in his mouth. We had more weapons and antidote for the cyanide. So, in my film we ask, why not try that and not wait?

Photograph: A scene from the film Mission 90 Days.

Also Read: '18 people died in the attack. So why can't 26 convicted hang for it?'

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