India’s Most Fearless

by Aroor, Shiv

  Upon receiving the call from Udhampur that he had been expecting, from his unit’s Commanding Officer, or CO, Maj. Tango gathered his men immediately for a quick return to the Valley. The team reached Dras that same night of 18 September—a date the men would never forget.

  The next morning, as they began their journey to Srinagar, things were already in motion in Delhi. The first minister to make a statement was former Army Chief, Gen. V.K. Singh, who, after the traditional condemnations, made a remarkably generous appeal in the circumstances—he said that India could not act on emotion. It would be a critical spark to the success of the masquerade, followed shortly thereafter by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who declared that the sacrifice of the Uri soldiers would not go in vain. Speaking to the Army in Srinagar, Parrikar sounded a familiar note, asking the Army to take ‘firm action’, but not specifying what such action needed to be. This was standard-issue Bharat Sarkaar (Indian Government) response after a terror attack.

  However, to ensure that the government’s messaging was not so measured as to rouse suspicion, junior ministers were tasked with adding some fire to the proceedings. That crucial bit was deftly served up by Manohar Parrikar’s junior minister, Subhash Bhamre, who declared that the time had come ‘to hit back’.

  Two more top-level meetings took place on 19 September—one chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had cancelled his visit to Russia, and the other by Prime Minister Modi at the PMO. Army Chief Gen. Dalbir Singh, who had dashed to the Kashmir valley just hours after the previous day’s attack, had been conveyed the government’s clear political directive. He arrived in Srinagar with the green signal that the SF had so far only ever dreamt about: permission to plan and execute a retaliatory strike with the government’s full backing.

  Over the next 24 hours, the Army would draw up a devastating revenge plan, with options for the government leadership to choose from.

  The Army routinely simulates attacks on enemy territory during combat exercises and as preparation for possible hostilities. But as the COs of the 2 SF units (one of them being Maj. Tango’s unit) began listing their options, they knew that history was being written then and there.

  On 20 September, just as Maj. Tango and his team arrived in Srinagar, the Army’s Northern Commander, or GOC-in-C of the Udhampur-headquartered Northern Command, Lt. Gen. Deependra Singh Hooda, had in his hands a final list of mission options and was preparing to present them to the government in Delhi through encrypted channels. The options were presented with remarkable detail.

  ‘We just needed clearance. In the SF, we are war-ready at all times. When we are not in operations, we are preparing for them. There’s a purpose behind everything we do,’ Maj. Tango says.

  At the Army Headquarters in Delhi, the mood was expectedly sombre, but focused. Aided by a team that had been galvanized by the attack, Vice Chief of the Army Staff (later Chief) Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat was steeped in the planning phase, bringing decades of infantry training to what would be the most decisive operation he would help oversee. What happened on 18 September was personal for Lt. Gen. Rawat. As a young Captain, he had commanded a Gorkha Rifles company in Uri in the early 1980s and had gone on to command a brigade in one of the most restive parts of the Kashmir valley. He would return years later as a Major General to command the Baramulla-based 19 Division. As he focused on the unprecedented plans on his table, Lt. Gen. Rawat had no way of knowing that a few months later, his experience in J&K and his crucial role in planning India’s response to Uri would be high on the government’s mind when it entrusted him with leadership of one of the largest armies in the world.

  The options were tabulated. The first column bore the name of the location that would be attacked. The second column provided its location represented by distance inside PoK from the LoC. The third column provided information about the location and the number of terrorists who were likely to be encountered there. The fourth column provided a detailed list of required resources in terms of men, equipment, logistical and back-up support. There was 1 final column. It provided a figure of the number of casualties India could expect for that particular target. Some of the targets listed predicted the possibility of zero casualties if men and equipment were adequately ramped up. Other options predicted definite casualties, in some cases in double-digit numbers.

  ‘The options provided were as specific as possible. The government would have to take a decision based on these inputs, which included probable casualty count. We spared no details,’ says Maj. Tango.

  The target list was scrutinized along a top-secret chain of command that numbered barely a handful of people, with ‘need to know’ rules applicable throughout. The options were vetted by designated officers from the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing, before a final recommended brief was presented to the government.

  Meanwhile, arriving in Srinagar on the morning of 20 September, Maj. Tango went straight to a designated operations room to meet his CO, who had arrived after spending the previous day in Uri with his men.

  ‘Chhote, serious matter hai,’ the Colonel told Maj. Tango. The two men could cut to the chase like they always had. A decade ago, Maj Tango’s CO had been Team Leader to a young, recently commissioned Mike as Troop Commander. Now, as 2IC, Maj. Tango would march into hell if his CO ordered him to. The Colonel had never hesitated before when speaking to Mike. But that morning, there was a clear trace of hesitation. And with good reason.

  Orders had just arrived posting Maj. Tango out from the Kashmir valley and to a course in a different part of the country. While his departure was scheduled for a whole month later, Army units regard such situations jokingly as ‘posted out, not interested’ or PONI. Simply put, the sense is that once officers have received their next posting, they might not really have their heart in the current one any longer.

  For Maj. Tango, that morning in Srinagar, there was no PONI, and no dilemma.

  ‘I was given the option to either stay back and monitor the operation, or lead the operation and go in. It didn’t take me a moment to decide,’ Maj. Tango recalls.

  Maj. Tango knew that the mission afoot was an operation all SF men dreamed of. The officer also knew there was no real option. His CO needed his best men in the lead. As the 2 men smoked, Maj. Tango reached out.

  ‘Sir, aap tension mein lag rahe ho. (Sir, you look worried.) How can you be in a dilemma, sir? Just give me the order. No hesitation,’ Maj. Tango said to his CO, his voice confident and unwavering.

  ‘Jis cheez ke liye SF join kiya tha, woh mauka ab aaya hai aur aap option de rahe ho (The reason for which I joined the SF, that opportunity has now arrived, and you are giving me options),’ Maj. Tango smiled.

  Twenty minutes later, Maj. Tango and his 19 men bundled into squad vehicles to begin the 70-km dash to Baramulla. By midnight on 20 September, Maj. Tango’s team arrived at a post on the LoC in the Uri sector.

  The plans were so secret that even the teams tasked with executing the attack were not in the loop. The COs of the two Para-SF units had simply informed the teams to head to locations on the LoC in Uri, Kupwara and Rajouri sectors and await further orders. They were instructed to be on 12-hour notice to begin moving.

  Maj. Tango and his warriors moved on foot. Being airlifted by chopper to the LoC post was out of the question. Apart from dangers posed by flying so close to Pakistan Army positions, the echo effect in the mountains would infinitely amplify the unsubtle whirring of helicopter blades.

  Morale was high that night of 20 September as the soldiers crept up to the LoC. Their furtive arrival was an unmissable sign that offensive action was afoot. The SF are never deployed for defence. Their principal task is to attack and destroy. But remaining hidden would be an enormous challenge.

  ‘When SF men get close to the LoC, alarm bells ring on the other side,’ says Maj. Tango. ‘No matter how much you try to mask your arrival, there’s something about SF soldiers. They just know.’

  Like Maj. Tango’s team at
Uri, 2 more Para-SF teams had been deployed—one in the Poonch area north of Jammu, and another at a post on the LoC in Kupwara in north Kashmir, each with a single launch pad to attack inside PoK. At these 3 locations, the warriors hunkered down and awaited their orders.

  The weather at the LoC was mild and temperate in September, but would change only a few weeks later. The terrain, on the other hand, never changed, mountainous, undulating and hostile in every possible natural way—features that added immeasurably to the uninterrupted danger afforded by eyeball-to-eyeball perches of Indian and Pakistani border posts.

  The weather, at any rate, was the only thing that was mild. The morale boost that came with the SF reinforcements had done nothing to blunt the fury that pervaded Army ranks after the Uri attack. In fact, the Army had decided to use soldiers from the units that had suffered losses in the Uri attack for the elaborate revenge mission. A Ghatak platoon was formed and soldiers from the 2 units that had lost men were roped in to man border posts and provide crucial terrain intelligence and support to the mission that lay ahead. Tactically, this was a smart move—few knew the lay of the frontier land better than they did. But there was another astute reason. Involving them in the mission would at least begin to lay the ghosts of Uri to rest.

  But if the eagerness for payback was not already acute, Pakistan would gamely fan India’s fury into an inferno the following day. And the man who would do it would be Pakistan’s Prime Minister himself.

  On 21 September 2016, Nawaz Sharif addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The irony of his address would become apparent only in hindsight. A traditional platform for Pakistan to raise the Kashmir issue, Nawaz Sharif went a step further that evening in New York City, less than 4 days after the Uri attack:

  Peace and normalization between Pakistan and India cannot be achieved without a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. . . . Our predictions have now been confirmed by events. A new generation of Kashmiris has risen spontaneously against India’s illegal occupation—demanding freedom from occupation. Burhan Wani, the young leader murdered by Indian forces, has emerged as the symbol of the latest Kashmiri Intifada, a popular and peaceful freedom movement, led by Kashmiris, young and old, men and women, armed only with an undying faith in the legitimacy of their cause, and a hunger for freedom in their hearts.1

  The message was unmissable. Not only had Sharif dispensed with any bilateral decency of referring to the Uri attack, he had in fact found it fit to venerate a man India had designated a terrorist, and whose group had been responsible for hundreds of terror attacks on Kashmiri civilians. No one had expected Sharif to offer anything more than the usual diplomatic platitudes about how India and Pakistan are both victims of terror. But they had not expected the bare effrontery of choosing to invoke an enemy of the Indian state. In India, while public anger turned into a virtual call to war, Sharif’s insolent speech was the confirmation the political leadership needed that their political masquerade was working. But the true master stroke in the elaborate theatre would be delivered 3 days later. And the man to deliver it would be the Indian Prime Minister himself.

  On 24 September, at 1755 hours, thousands gathered for a public rally in Kozhikode, Kerala. The Prime Minister, silent since the Uri attack except for tweets, had the media’s gaze fixed on him. What would he say about Uri? Would he respond to Nawaz Sharif, a man he had cheerfully diverted his helicopter to visit in Lahore less than a year before? Would the Prime Minister satiate a public that was looking for Pakistan to be taught a lesson? It was time for Modi to play his part in a masterful facade that was now fully in motion:

  A leader [Nawaz Sharif ] is reading the speech of a terrorist. I wish to speak to Pakistani citizens. Before 1947 your forefathers loved this entire land. India is ready to fight a war. A war against poverty. Let India and Pakistan fight a war to end social evils, illiteracy and unemployment. Let us see who wins.2

  The media and the public were stunned. This was not anywhere close to the harsh, thundering rebuttal Modi was capable of. It provided not even the visceral satisfaction the crowds had come to expect from the Prime Minister when he spoke about or to Pakistan. The call to war on poverty was a feat of cunning that would be the penultimate step in the subterfuge. The messaging was calibrated precisely to accentuate India as a country high on political rhetoric and substantially low on political will.

  At the LoC, Uri, Maj. Tango and his men were on their 4th day forward deployed. Unused to sitting in wait for long, the SF men were yearning for an order, whatever it was.

  ‘We were very calm. Since we were so close to Pakistan Army posts, we had little or no movement. They may have suspected SF presence on the LoC, but being spotted was not an option,’ says Maj. Tango.

  As Team Leader, Maj. Tango had chosen every man himself, including the officers and men who would play a supporting role. He was also acutely aware of the fact that the lives of 19 men were, quite literally, in his hands.

  The SF men waited, conducting brief reconnaissance patrols from the Uri post, but never straying too far. The wait was laced with tension, a numbing irony all commandos are familiar with—there is infinitely more disturbance in calm than in an actual firefight. Once ‘contact’ is made and bullets begin to fly, that’s when calm truly returns.

  Maj. Tango and his men had not been informed of their precise targets yet, but the team was by now certain of the nature of the mission they would be embarking on. The men were fully prepared. Each man knew the specific role he would play. Permutations of outcomes were discussed threadbare. The entire operation would be planned based on timing with the other 2 teams at the other 2 locations along the LoC. Given how terrain changes from south to north, inter-team coordination would prove to be a bit of a magical process.

  From their post, Maj. Tango and his men had heard the Prime Minister’s speech in Kozhikode. Maj. Tango was also aware that India’s Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj was scheduled to speak at the UNGA 48 hours later. That speech would be the final act of a national deception that had begun 8 days ago, a day after the Uri attack.

  With signature indignation, Sushma Swaraj appeared to speak directly to Pakistan’s Prime Minister. But the tone of her speech had been carefully sculpted to amplify not anger or indignation, but hurt and betrayal:

  Did we impose any pre-condition when Prime Minister Modi travelled from Kabul to Lahore? What pre-conditions? We took the initiative to resolve issues not on the basis of conditions, but on the basis of friendship! We have in fact attempted a paradigm of friendship in the last two years which is without precedent. We conveyed Eid greetings to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, wished success to his cricket team, extended good wishes for his health and well-being. Did all this come with pre-conditions attached? And what did we get in return? Pathankot, Bahadur Ali and Uri.3

  Maj. Tango watched the minister’s speech live on the evening of 26 September. There had been no warning in the address, no aggression. The chief emotion was disappointment. It would all make sense later, but the diversion was as unobvious to Maj. Tango as it was to Pakistan.

  The officer did not know why, but he had an inkling that the team’s orders were about to arrive. He was only half right. By midnight on 26 September, the warriors received word ordering them to be on standby, and identifying their targets: 2 terror launch pads in the area across from Uri. The 2 other teams were given a single launch pad target each.

  A total of 4 terror launch pads operated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and protected by the Pakistan Army had just been selected for doom.

  The Indian soldiers now needed to find out everything they possibly could about the targets in real time. An operational standby meant they would have nothing more than a few hours to roll out the mission once the final go-ahead was given. And they knew that the go-ahead could come any time.

  A series of extremely furtive observation missions by Maj. Tango’s team over the next few hours revealed that the 8 Pakistan Army posts ove
rlooking the Uri post were not in an aggressive or overly defensive posture. Their guard was far from down, but it was clear that they had loosened up and were distinctly unaware of what was about to come their way.

  The team knew that, for all the intelligence they were armed with, nothing could be quite as reliable as human intelligence on the ground in enemy territory. Through a series of masked communications over mobile, Maj. Tango’s men contacted 4 ‘assets’—2 local villagers in PoK and 2 Pakistani nationals operating in the area—both moles in the dreaded Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group, men who had been turned by Indian agencies a few years before. All 4 assets separately confirmed the target information that was placed before them. In terms of intelligence, there was nothing further for the team to do on this side of the LoC.

  Apart from the final preparations and reconnaissance missions from the Indian side, the men checked their weapons and equipment. Maj. Tango would be armed with his M4A1 5.56-mm carbine, the rest of the assault team with a mix of M4A1s and standard-issue Israeli Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles, Instalaza C90 disposable grenade launchers and Galil sniper rifles. Batteries on night-vision equipment were checked and other devices were charged too. As the hours went by and it was clear that a final go-ahead was about to come, Maj. Tango’s chief worry bubbled to the surface.

  ‘As Team Leader, my concern was to get all my men out safely. I had chosen the best men for the job. But the one thing bothering me was the de-induction—the return. That’s where I knew I could lose guys,’ Maj. Tango recalls.

  This was no small worry. The ‘induction’ process, the trek down a steep ridgeline into PoK, would actually be the simplest part of the operation. Even the actual attack was not something that flustered the commandos. It was the return, an uphill trek to the LoC, that was the truly daunting part. Their backs would be facing a blaze of fire from Pakistan Army posts, belatedly roused from their slumber. And the dominant position held by the posts would make the escaping warriors easy targets to spot and kill.