by Shiv Aroor
The wave of tiredness that swept over Capt. Pawan on that cold afternoon was hardly surprising. He had been deployed in Jammu and Kashmir barely six months earlier, in August 2015, and had been on his feet nearly the entire time. In that chair, lulled by the stillness of his camp, Capt. Pawan slipped into a deep sleep, the kind afforded by Kashmir’s unmistakably pristine air.
Two hours later, at the 10 Para Special Force main base in Awantipora 40 km away, Capt. Pawan’s team leader, Maj. Tushar Singh Tomar, received a call from the Army’s 15 Corps Headquarters in Srinagar. Maj. Tushar was used to receiving calls summoning him at short notice for anti-terror operations—it was his bread and butter, after all. But the brief he received over the phone from Srinagar made it clear that this was going to be a nightmarish mission even by Special Forces standards.
At 4.20 p.m., a convoy of buses transporting over 500 CRPF personnel from Jammu had been ambushed by a small group of terrorists in Pampore, a suburb of Srinagar on River Jhelum’s east bank that was famous for its saffron fields. The number of terrorists was unknown at the time, but three of them had taken position outside the main gate of the state government’s Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), a plush four-storeyed building that stood out for its modern construction and carefully manicured lawns. Two CRPF men, Head Constable Bhola Prasad Singh and Constable R.K. Raina, had been killed and several injured in the initial ambush. But when soldiers who formed part of the convoy’s armed escort spilled out of their buses to return fire, the terrorists rapidly shifted position. All the while firing, the three men scaled the compound wall, dashed across the wide lawn and disappeared into the JKEDI building.
It was a Saturday. As the CRPF soldiers took defensive positions, they hoped the building would be shut for the weekend. But it soon became clear that the institute had over 100 Kashmiri civilians inside, attending special weekend lectures on entrepreneurship. And three terrorists had just entered the building.
‘Bloody nightmare,’ Maj. Tushar found himself whispering to himself as he disconnected the call. Gathering his thoughts, a few moments later he dialled Capt. Pawan in Shopian, asking him and his squad to drop everything and move immediately towards Pampore.
‘We got the information that the JKEDI building was surrounded, but that the forces on the ground had no way in,’ says Tushar, who is now a Lieutenant Colonel and second-in-command of the 10 Para Special Forces.
As Team Leader, Maj. Tushar’s ‘boys’ were split into squads deployed across the Kashmir valley. He chose to summon two squads immediately to Pampore—Capt. Pawan’s from Shopian, and the squad under another young officer deployed near Kulgam further to the south.
Capt. Pawan and his Team Leader agreed to rendezvous at a common meeting point near Pampore before heading into the encounter area. A cold late winter rain had begun to fall as Maj. Tushar left his unit base in Awantipora, the kind that soldiers in the Valley know well. A steady, unrelenting drizzle that drives the cold into your bones.
‘When I departed from Awantipora, Pawan called me saying he was stuck—it had been raining hard in his area, and his Gypsy had got stranded in a nallah that had overflowed on to the road,’ says Tushar.
Cancelling the rendezvous, Maj. Tushar headed straight to where Capt. Pawan was stuck.
‘When I reached, I see this guy had taken off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and with his feet submerged in freezing sub-zero temperature water, he was pushing the Gypsy with all his strength,’ says Tushar.
The Major got down from his jeep and helped the squad push the Gypsy out of the slush and back on to the road. Capt. Pawan was soaked to the skin. His Team Leader suggested they head to the nearest temporary camp so the young officer could change and catch a breath before they moved towards Pampore. But Capt. Pawan refused.
‘We’ll lose time if we don’t move now, Sir,’ he told his superior officer. ‘Let’s move immediately.’
It wasn’t the first time Capt. Pawan had demonstrated an unusual youthful keenness to be deployed in an operation. Originally commissioned into 7 Dogra, the new officer yearned to be part of the Special Forces. In April 2015, he successfully made the switch and was inducted into the 10 Para unit. With his maroon beret and balidaan badge in place, he immediately requested his CO to send him to Kashmir. He wanted to waste no time getting into the thick of action.
Arriving in Kashmir four months after he joined the 10 Para, he was sent on his first mission on 3 October in Pulwama, an operation in which two terrorists were killed. It would be the first of a nearly uninterrupted series of missions the young officer would throw himself into.
‘He would be the first to volunteer for every operation,’ says Tushar. ‘He was doing a lot of operations—almost every single day he was out on an op.’
As the rain showed no signs of stopping, the two officers and their men got back into their vehicles and made for Pampore, arriving just as the sun was setting.
‘We arrived in Pampore and had to dodge a crowd of stone-pelters near the encounter site,’ says Tushar. Stone-pelting crowds had become par for the course during anti-terror operations in the Kashmir Valley, and this was no surprise.
A month earlier, Capt. Pawan had been struck in the face by a stone following an encounter in Pulwama. A knot of stone-pelters had attacked the Special Forces men as they embarked on a combing operation looking for additional terrorists. The incident had revealed much about Capt. Pawan to his superiors.
‘Pawan had taken three days’ leave on his birthday (15 January, which happens to also be Army Day) to go to Ferozepur to participate in a reunion of his original unit, the 7 Dogra,’ says Tushar. ‘Thereafter, he reported to the Valley on 18 January and was deployed the very next day on another encounter, once again in Pulwama. On the way back, there was a lot of stone-pelting. He was hit by a stone on his face and broke three front teeth. I was with him, but he never told me. And he kept on walking. Later, I found out through another boy, who informed me that Pawan was bleeding. We gave him some first aid, which he accepted reluctantly. He was totally calm about his broken three teeth, with the nerves exposed. He refused an injection. We had to force him to see a doctor in Awantipora and then later send him for a check-up to the base hospital in Srinagar. When he was there, they recommended that he take sick leave and rest for a few days. He agreed to visit the doctor once a week, but refused outright to take leave.’
Carefully navigating through the crowd of stone-pelters near Pampore, Maj. Tushar and Capt. Pawan arrived on the scene to the intermittent sound of assault rifle fire and grenade blasts. Tushar had been right about this being a nightmare.
Stepping out of their vehicles, the two officers quickly found the immediate responders at the site. Apart from the CRPF, an RR unit had been deployed around the JKEDI building, cutting off any chance of escape for the three terrorists who were now confirmed to be inside the building. A team from the J&K Police SOG was also present.
The men quickly assessed what was becoming a devastatingly difficult situation. With information confirming that over 100 civilians were inside, soldiers on the outside couldn’t fire indiscriminately at the building for fear of casualties. And grenades were out of the question. The three terrorists, who had made their way into the building from the main entrance on the ground floor, had no such constraints. Switching among themselves and moving cunningly between rooms on the top floor that provided them the perfect vantage point, they fired intermittently at the forces below, keeping them on the defensive and effectively pinning them down.
During a brief lull in the firing, one team of CRPF men managed to approach and enter the building. What they didn’t know was that the terrorists had seen them and quietly crept to the ground floor to stop them. Watching their every move, the terrorists flung a grenade at the CRPF men as soon as they entered the lobby, injuring four and triggering the first heavy firefight indoors. One terrorist was hit in the leg in the exchange, forcing him and his partners to return to their positions in the ro
oms on the top floor. The injured CRPF men were carefully extracted from the building. With the terrorists now effectively restricted to the top floor, they resumed firing at the forces below, even as the injured men were being pulled out on stretchers. The situation had got worse.
What this exchange had done, however, was provide a diversion so that additional CRPF units could approach other entrances of the building and extract the civilians. Throughout that night, civilians would be pulled out in small numbers, often two or three at a time, to ensure the terrorists didn’t blow the whole building up.
Capt. Pawan observed the building carefully. Smoke rose from a blaze at the lobby level, and a facade of glass panes on the building’s front was completely shattered. The darkness was lit up periodically by flashes of gunfire from the top floors. It was clear to him that the terrorists had the advantage. And with some civilians still inside the building, there was every possibility that the encounter could turn into a hostage situation.
It had been decided that the next offensive action would be at first light the following morning. But Capt. Pawan hated the idea. He took Maj. Tushar aside.
‘We can’t let the night go, Sir,’ Capt. Pawan told him. ‘I’m proceeding for a recce of the building. We can finish this.’
Maj. Tushar considered it for a moment. It was a highly dangerous proposition. Approaching the building unseen was virtually impossible.
‘Every minute we give them, they can plant more traps and extend the stand-off. There will be more casualties. Let me go in now and do a recce. What else are we here for, Sir?’ Capt. Pawan insisted.
The young Captain had a point. The Special Forces had been summoned specifically because of the high possibility of a night fight in an enclosed space. If approaching the building was difficult under the cover of darkness, it would be impossible in daylight. And Capt. Pawan was right—the terrorists appeared well-trained and armed to stretch the encounter out as long as possible. It was important to do some damage, any damage, while it was still dark. Maj. Tushar relented.
Capt. Pawan gathered the five men of his squad and held a quick briefing in the cover provided by a large armoured vehicle, with bullets raining down from the top floors of the building. As they spoke, the men began to dress themselves with the equipment they would need for the recce. First, they put on their ballistic vests and gloves. Each man then strapped an American-built AN/PVS-14 night vision device to his helmet using a harness—a crucial piece of optical gear that would allow them to hunt in pitch darkness. Finally, each man checked his main weapon—a Colt M4A1 carbine along with its ammunition magazines.
The plan was shared with the CRPF, RR and SOG. With backup forces in position around the perimeter of the compound, Capt. Pawan and his men crept over a low wall and headed towards the building. Through his night vision device, Capt. Pawan could make out the building clearly, along with the fire still burning in the lobby area that appeared to him as a bright green blaze.
At the perimeter, Maj. Tushar had put on his battle gear too, ready to rush in as part of a second wave. In touch with Capt. Pawan through a combat communications earpiece, he watched through his own night vision device as the young officer’s squad made its way carefully around the building.
‘There was speculative firing from many of the windows on the top floor. But I could tell Pawan was very calm,’ says Tushar. ‘He took his time. He walked around the entire building, carefully studying the situation. Then we worked out a plan. He informed me that he planned to take it floor by floor, starting with the top.’
Entering the building from the front lobby was out of the question. The wide atrium would give the terrorists an easy vantage point to pick out the approaching commandos and fire straight at them. Capt. Pawan had found a better approach—through an emergency fire staircase at the back of the building.
Calling for cover fire on the front of the building to keep the terrorists focused on that area, Capt. Pawan and his men carefully slipped to the back and began ascending the stairway to the fourth floor. With reconnaissance complete, the plan was a standard drill—to clear the building floor by floor from the top downward. Every few seconds, Capt. Pawan would whisper into his mouthpiece to tell Maj. Tushar what he saw and what the status of his approach was.
‘He sounded very confident as he and his five boys went up the stairs,’ says Tushar. ‘There was a restaurant on the rooftop. Adjoining it were a number of rooms that had to be cleared. Pawan kept me informed at every step.’
When Capt. Pawan’s squad was halfway up the stairs, the firing from the top floors stopped. He quickly received word from Maj. Tushar to proceed with caution as there was no way to confirm that the attention of the terrorists remained diverted to the front. Capt. Pawan noted the warning and proceeded up the stairs even more slowly, listening at every step for any audio clues that might give away the location of the terrorists.
Ascending the final set of stairs, the six commandos emerged onto a small landing with a door that led to the top floor. Capt. Pawan waited, straining his ears to check if he could hear anything at all from beyond the door. There was silence. It was totally dark by this time, but Capt. Pawan and his squad trudged forward through the door, seeing a world painted shades of green by their night vision devices, their weapons at shoulder height and ready. They knew they were a whisper away from a firefight.
Beretta pistol
‘Entering floor now,’ Capt. Pawan whispered, as the scout from his squad opened the door and the six men entered the floor into a narrow passageway. At the end of the passage were a pair of doors to rooms that looked out over the side of the building. The men would no longer have the luxury of silence, as they now needed to begin clearing the rooms one by one. With the element of stealth gone, they would be infinitely more vulnerable. There was no other way to get the operation going.
In silence, Capt. Pawan signalled to his scout to break down the door.
‘The scout tried to break open the door but couldn’t, so Capt. Pawan rushed forward and kicked down the door quickly. As soon as he broke the door down, there was a burst of fire from inside the room,’ says Tushar, who could hear the firing through his earpiece in real time. Waiting anxiously for an update, Maj. Tushar gathered his men and asked them to prepare to approach the building for backup.
Capt. Pawan did not have the time to report his every move any longer. He had just broken down the door to the room in which the terrorists had taken refuge. The only audio from his feed now was an uninterrupted exchange of fire. Maj. Tushar listened carefully as he signalled to his squad to follow him towards the building.
‘The first burst of fire from inside the room missed Pawan, so he immediately charged inside,’ says Tushar. ‘He was now standing just 2 m from the terrorist who had fired. The second burst hit him in the shoulder and chest.’ Shaken but still standing, Capt. Pawan edged a metre closer to the terrorist before opening fire and dropping him in his tracks.
‘Pawan’s voice came through to me. He said, “Lagi hai (I’ve been hit),” but continued,’ Tushar says.
What the men didn’t know was that one of the bullets had pierced through Capt. Pawan’s chest and ripped away a piece of his heart. Bleeding profusely, he continued to edge forward as he had seen the other two terrorists retreat into another room.
‘Two other boys from the squad continued to fire alongside Pawan—they knew they had only one opening to fire through,’ says Tushar. ‘For the first time, it became clear what the number of terrorists was. Pawan had dropped one. There were two more.’
Maj. Tushar asked the young officer to move back and let the other squad members go forward, but Capt. Pawan said he now had a vantage point from which to proceed. As he edged forward, a third hail of fire came out of the dark recesses of the room, hitting him again. This time, the two lead scouts of the team, Sabarmal Baji and Nayak Singh, quickly pulled him out of the room. As two members of the squad stood in the passageway firing into the room, Capt. Pawan was carri
ed carefully down the stairs by three men, even as he protested weakly.
As they reached the ground floor, Maj. Tushar’s team was preparing to ascend the stairs.
‘He was bleeding heavily. Pawan was tall and very well-built for his age. It took three of his men to carry him down the stairs,’ Tushar says. ‘I couldn’t believe it, seeing Pawan like that. He had incredible physical strength.’
As Cadet Sergeant Major of his squadron at NDA, Pawan had displayed unusual endurance and might—course-mates remember him carrying other cadets during cross country training and never betraying more than passing tiredness.
Now dizzy from blood loss, Capt. Pawan stammered to his team leader, ‘Bande hain andar, Sir, aur bande hain (There are more inside, Sir, there are more).’
Capt. Pawan slipped in and out of consciousness as Maj. Tushar quickly took a briefing from the other two men of the squad about the situation on the top floor.
‘The terrorist had missed him with the first burst of fire, so this guy had charged inside,’ says Tushar. ‘It was an intensely close combat engagement. Just about 2 m. He was hit but he continued. It was just an unfortunate moment when he was shot—the range was too close; otherwise, Pawan could have dodged it. There was no room, it was impossible. What he did was beyond brave.’
Apart from his bravery, Capt. Pawan had also given the operation its first foothold into the building, a crucial tactical step upon which the remainder of the operation could be planned and executed. The foothold drastically reduced the advantage held thus far by the terrorists by virtue of their position, and effectively began a countdown to their end. For the first time since the encounter began, the terrorists were on the defensive.