India's Most Fearless 2

by Shiv Aroor

  ‘He kept saying, “Meri injury normal hai (My injury is normal).” He was only concerned about two things that day: that we should not take casualties, and that the terrorists should not get away. Woh akhiri dum tak bas yehi bolte rahe, “Main theek hoon. Baakiyon ko dekho” (He kept saying till the end that he was fine and asked us to take care of the other injured commandos). He ensured that every man on the squad had taken cover before he did.’

  At 4 p.m., Havildar Rajeev managed to reach his team leader, still seated with his back to the tree, clutching his weapon. Maj. Mohit had bled out and wasn’t breathing any longer. The magazine in his rifle was empty.

  Along with Maj. Mohit and three from his squad, a total of eight Special Forces men were killed in the Haphruda operation, which continued for four more days, till 25 March. A total of twelve terrorists would be killed in the operation.

  ‘He kept guiding us throughout that firefight. We didn’t even know the exact extent of his injuries. He was just not bothered about his safety,’ says Naik Hajari Lal. ‘By late night, multiple squads from our unit had come down to Haphruda forest from different locations and cordoned off the entire area. Choppers were flying above us, looking for any patch where they could land to evacuate the injured commandos to hospital. But there was no place for the choppers to land in the dense forest.’

  Havildar Rajeev and another soldier carried their team leader’s body back to the 6 RR Alpha Company base.

  ‘His body was still warm. I was hoping he would survive,’ Havildar Rajeev says. ‘It was not possible to think of him as dead. His back was on my back and the other man was holding his legs. There was no time for a stretcher. There was no time to check vital signs. His eyes were closed and he was unconscious. We carried him for over a kilometre. I kept thinking throughout that Mohit Sir had guided and protected us non-stop till he fell unconscious. Even after taking so many bullets, he was only concerned about us. Unko humari life ki zyada chinta thi (He was more worried about our lives). When I was carrying him, I just wanted to take him to the chopper as quickly as possible. He was taken straight to 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar. We returned to join our squad in the forest. We learnt only the next morning that Mohit Sir did not make it. Carrying Mohit Sir that day to the helicopter is the heaviest burden I have ever carried.’

  Maj. Mohit’s CO, Colonel Vinod Kumar Nambiar, had arrived and was monitoring the situation from an adjoining area.

  ‘Mohit laid the foundation for the success of that five-day operation,’ says Col. Nambiar. ‘He had killed four terrorists himself with the MGL. Two or three more terrorists were also killed by his squad. Because of Mohit, the terrorists were unable to break away and run from the firefight. And by that time, we had positioned multiple teams. It was his decision to stay engaged even after so many injuries, because of which our boys were able to finish them off.’

  Naik Hajari Lal says, ‘Our squad was more furious than sad. We had to avenge Mohit Sir’s death. If we were alive, it was because of him. In an intense firefight, it is difficult to remember or recall every detail, but his last order was that the terrorists should not escape. Those were his last words. And that was our only focus. I was with him till his last moments. He knew, perhaps, that it was his last firefight. But he kept motivating us till the very end. We kept thinking that Sa’ab is OK.’

  ‘Had Mohit Sir not guided us and led us the way he did that day, perhaps I too would have returned home in a coffin,’ says Havildar Rajeev, his eyes welling up. ‘I was only twenty-two then. Aakhiri saans tak unhone humein lead kiya ek sherdil commander ki tarah (He led us till his last breath, just as a braveheart commander should).’

  His CO cannot forget the reports he heard from the other soldiers after the operation.

  ‘When three of his boys have died, he has also been hit, and he is sticking around, leading his men from the front and continuing to fight, it means a lot and it raises the morale of others; it motivates them. And him sticking around despite his injuries was precisely what motivated the other squads there.’

  All twelve terrorists killed that day were Pakistani nationals from the LeT. The firefight with an elite Indian Army squad proved just how well-trained and armed the terrorists were. They had scale maps of the whole area on them—some better than the ones used by the security forces. They even had route maps.

  ‘We lost eight men that day, some of the best trained men in the Indian Army. That can happen in battle. But how could it happen to someone like us, the 1 Para?’ Col. Nambiar remembers wondering at the time. ‘We had a sense of professional arrogance. How could we take such casualties? We are good, we are well-trained, we have worked hard, we have prepared for such scenarios, we have conducted some remarkable operations in Kashmir in the past. We knew we were very good. Against that background, when something like this happens, it was like, “How could this happen to us?” I still think of it. I play it back in my mind very often. The terrorists were on a height. They had some advantage. I think they had a sharpshooter in their squad, someone with the ability of a sniper. That person took accurate shots. While the other terrorists were firing, this person was taking his time and picking his targets. Invariably, most casualties happened when they were trying to retrieve injured commandos. I think it was this guy who caused the maximum damage. I play the whole thing in my head over and over even now.’

  When a message was transmitted to the 1 Para base camp informing them that Maj. Mohit had been hit and was sitting motionless, saying nothing, an officer at the camp remembers replying with disbelief.

  ‘It was not possible to imagine him lying motionless,’ he says. ‘I kept asking the jawan to make sure, and then make doubly sure. How could Mohit be gone? But they replied, he isn’t moving and he isn’t saying a word. It took us a long time to accept this.’

  At 1 a.m., just under 1000 km away in Ghaziabad, the phone rang at the Sharma residence. Maj. Mohit’s father answered the call.

  ‘Two officers were at the other end of the line, saying they wanted to visit us,’ says Rajender Sharma. ‘I woke Mohit’s mother and shared this with her. She found it strange that Mohit’s friends were coming over this late and that Mohit had not informed us. She felt there was something amiss. Then we called his wife, Rishma, who was in Patiala at the time. His colleague Maj. Bhaskar Tomar took the call, but didn’t tell us, despite knowing what had happened. Half an hour later, the two officers arrived at our house. They shared the news with us eventually.’

  Sushila Sharma lost consciousness when the two officers finally said the words. In Patiala, Mohit’s wife, Maj. Rishma, had also fainted when she was told.

  ‘The news was broken to me on the night of 21 March by his unit officers, accompanied by my formation officers,’ says Maj. Rishma. ‘They had come to my house. I went blank. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I fell unconscious. I was taken to the intensive care unit at the base hospital and was there all night. I was taken in an ambulance to Ghaziabad the next day, 22 March.’

  Every 21 March, Maj. Mohit’s unit observes a two-minute silence in his memory and of those who died with him.

  ‘Everyone in the unit knows about that operation,’ says Havildar Rajeev. ‘He never made us feel he was our senior. He treated us as equals. In fact, that’s the culture of 1 Para, officers and soldiers intermingle a lot. Eat together, live together, stay together, fight together.’

  A decade since the operation, there isn’t a Special Forces soldier who doesn’t know about the Haphruda operation or the covert strike by Iftiqar Bhatt.

  Lt Col Vikas Dhuria, Second-in-Command of the 1 Para Special Forces, says, ‘I first met Mohit Sir when I was doing my probation with 1 Para Special Forces in 2004. People outside the unit may not know about it, but all of us in 1 Para Special Forces had heard about what he had done in Shopian, masquerading as a terrorist and killing two of them. It used to be a dream for us to conduct such an operation. It involved a lot of risk. Few can pull off something like that. I actually cannot think o
f anyone who could do so except Mohit.’

  Maj. Shantanu Sinha, twenty-eight years old and currently adjutant of 1 Para (having joined the unit in 2012, three years after Mohit’s death), says, ‘The first thing that anyone joining 1 Para learns of is Maj. Mohit’s gallant actions. One of the tasks for probationers is to find out about the major operations of the unit. His actions still motivate everyone in the unit.’

  ‘In many incidents, you have a person suddenly becoming brave in the heat of the moment. In Mohit’s case, it wasn’t in the heat of the moment. It was repeated—he was brave each and every time. I will say it was in his grain,’ says his CO at the time, Col. Nambiar. ‘His bravery was there for all to see, and not just in the battlefield. It was visible during training and in other aspects also. That moral courage was remarkable and that physical courage was also remarkable.’

  Speaking of the Iftikhar Bhatt operation, Naik Hajari Lal says, ‘He could have easily died in that operation. We would not have been able to even find his body. But he still went in. Bahut bada jigra tha unka. Itna dum rakhte the woh (He had a big heart. He had a lot of courage). Nothing mattered more to Mohit Sir than operations. The moment he would get a lead or an intelligence input, he would be ready to launch an operation. Sher ki tarah toot kar padte the ki chalo abhi, operation karte hain (Like a lion, he would pounce at the opportunity and say, let’s go, let’s launch an operation). He believed in launching operations quickly. He was in Kashmir only to conduct operations. Operation ke maamle mein shayad koi nahin hoga unke jaisa (There might not be many like him when it comes to operations). He knew the area very well and had an excellent network of informants. Agar source ka phone aaya toh Rishma ma’am ka phone woh rakh denge (He would choose to speak to his source over Rishma ma’am).’

  Maj. Mohit’s buddy, Havildar Rajeev, says that the officer’s story is incomplete without a mention of his guitar. ‘Guitar hamesha saath rakhte the. Unke haath mein ya toh Tavor hoti thi, ya guitar (He would either be holding a Tavor in his hands or a guitar),’ says Havildar Rajeev.

  The men of 1 Para Special Forces also remember Maj. Mohit for a particularly morbid sense of humour. Naik Hajari Lal recalls how he had completed a medical course several months before the 2009 operation.

  ‘Mohit Sa’ab asked me kya grading aayi hai. I said, “Sa’ab, grading toh B hai.” He said, “B toh theek hai par agar mujhe goli lagegi toh mujhe bacha lega na (B grading is fine, but if I get shot, you will be able to save me, won’t you)?”’

  At 6.45 a.m. on 23 March, Maj. Mohit’s body reached Ghaziabad, where his inconsolable mother, wife and father received him amid crowds from the locality and several more who had arrived to pay their respects. Later that morning, the officer’s mortal remains were transported to the Brar Square crematorium in Delhi Cantonment, where, in the presence of senior officers from the Special Forces, his pyre was lit by his brother, Madhur, who had given up his plans to move abroad as a software engineer when Mohit had decided to join the Army.

  A decade later, the wounds of their loss are still fresh for Mohit’s parents.

  ‘I can’t hold back my tears when I talk about my Mohit,’ says his mother, Sushila. ‘He was such a wonderful and caring son. He left us ten years ago, but we feel his presence in every corner of our home. We have not stopped crying. All parents love their children. But the qualities he had, he was different. I find it very difficult to talk about Mohit even today. We are his parents and you can understand how we feel, having lost our loving boy at such a young age. We have lost everything. He had tremendous respect for us and he would stop associating with anyone if they had a bad word to say about his parents. There can be no one like Mohit. Yes, he made the country proud and served with honour and bravery, but nothing can heal the loss of a child. For a mother, the void left by the death of her child can never be filled. A son gone will never come back.’

  Sushila Sharma looks at pictures of Mohit as a boy, and one of how his face had lit up when his parents had brought him a Casio keyboard from Nepal, a gift to encourage his love for music.

  Mohit’s father, Rajender Sharma, a retired employee of the Punjab National Bank, says, ‘Our life has come to a standstill after Mohit left us. Nothing can fill the void he has left behind. We miss our son every moment of our lives. It’s a wound that will never heal. My wife and I often talk about his childhood and go through our old photo albums. Mohit would always say that if he lived, he would rise to the rank of General, but if he was killed in action, he would earn the top-most gallantry award.’

  On 15 August 2009, Maj. Rishma would receive her husband’s posthumous Ashok Chakra, India’s highest peacetime gallantry award, from Pratibha Patil, the then President. Rishma had last spoken to her husband the morning he died.

  ‘It was a short call. He never told me about operations,’ Maj. Rishma says. ‘He would never disclose those things. He only said he would not be available on the phone for some time, and I understood he was out there doing what he liked most—conducting an operation. He was to come home on leave in a week’s time, around the end of March. He had delayed his own leave as he wanted his team’s officers and men to be able to visit their homes on Holi. He was very concerned about them. He used to consider them at par with family. He postponed his own leave. We had bought a house in Noida and were planning to take possession during Mohit’s leave. These ten years have definitely been difficult. And every single day, I have thought of Mohit and missed him. I miss the songs he would sing to me with his guitar. His two favourites to sing to me were “Pal pal dil ke paas ” and “Pyar humein kis mod pe le aaya ”. The love we had for each other gives me immense strength. He was the best. There can be nobody else like him. When you have been with the best, you just can’t think of anything else. I miss him. He was a happy guy. The rage and aggression would surface only when he was conducting operations.’

  ‘“Pyar humein kis mod pe le aaya ” was Mohit’s signature song,’ says Maj. Shantanu Sinha of his unit. ‘We still play it sometimes in his memory at our parties.’

  Col. Nambiar, now a Brigadier and a decorated commando himself, says the Special Forces will never stop talking about Maj. Mohit Sharma.

  ‘Loads of his friends keep meeting up and they come to me. We miss him. It is not about mourning his death, his sacrifice, it’s about celebrating his life and his legacy. Yeh nahin ki aankhon se aansoo nikal rahe hain, inspiration waali baat hai (It’s not that we shed tears, it’s more to do with being inspired by his bravery). We stare into the eyes of death every day. It’s like, Mohit has done such a great job, so how can we not do better and make him proud?’

  Maj. Mohit’s name and legacy have been preserved in many ways. Apart from the infinite recounting of his exploits within the Special Forces, a road and a metro station were named after him in Ghaziabad, and his family has established a trust that gives out scholarships and holds medical camps in his name each year.

  ‘We in 1 Para rejoice that he walked this earth and he was one of us,’ says Col. Surendra Singh Rajpurohit, current CO of 1 Para. ‘Mohit will forever inspire 1 Para and the Indian Army. Men come and men go. Being remembered the way Mohit is is the ultimate honour for a soldier.’

  Before he set out for the Shopian operation in March 2004, a soldier remembers hearing another officer call Mohit by his name. Mohit turned around, his bushy beard and hair covered in a checked scarf.

  ‘Mohit nahin, Sir, Iftikhar .’

  2

  ‘He Avenged Them, Didn’t He?’

  Corporal Jyoti Prakash Nirala

  Manasbal, Jammu and Kashmir

  17 November 2017

  The familiar tone of an incoming WhatsApp video call interrupted proceedings inside the darkened operations room at a secret Garud Special Forces base in Kashmir’s Manasbal. The call was from three-year-old Jigyasa. In one corner of the room, a commando pulled out the phone from his pocket, looked at it furtively for a moment and then cancelled the call. Five hundred kilometres away in Chandigarh, t
he child would try to reach her father three more times over the next few minutes before giving up. She had to—he had switched his phone off.

  There was no way Corporal Jyoti Prakash Nirala could have taken the call. He thanked technology every day for allowing him to video chat with his baby daughter, but that day, on 17 November 2017, Jigyasa had chosen to dial him when he was halfway through the most sensitive mission briefing of his life. The sort of briefing where there was no option to excuse himself even for a moment. He would speak to her later, after the briefing was done.

  The dimly lit operations room, like most the Army used, had maps covering nearly all its walls. At one end stood Sqn Ldr Rajiv Chauhan, thirty-six, the oldest man in the room and CO of the IAF Special Forces unit, 617 Garud Flight. Facing him were eighteen commandos, each man listening intently as their boss shared a piece of fresh intelligence with them. Intelligence the unit had been awaiting for weeks.

  ‘I’ve just received word that Osama Jungi and Mehmud Bhai have been tracked to a house in Chandargeer. It’s a reliable input from one of our known guys. He has said we can launch a hunt immediately,’ Sqn Ldr Rajiv told the men.

  He didn’t need to say the names twice. Every man in the room knew that Osama Jungi was special—if the blood that flowed through him was any measure, he was terror royalty. Jungi was closely related to India’s most wanted Pakistani terrorist, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the LeT and its front organization, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Known by the alias ‘Ubaid’ in Kashmir, Jungi was the son of Hafiz Saeed’s brother-in-law, Abdul Rehman Makki, the LeT’s second-in-command, and nephew of the LeT commander, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a key Pakistani terror boss who helped organize the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive in the Mumbai attacks, would later refer to Lakhvi during an interrogation as ‘Chacha Zaki’, a term of familiarity that established Lakhvi’s role in the operation. For Osama Jungi, Lakhvi was an uncle related by blood.