India's Most Fearless 2

by Shiv Aroor

  ‘One of the critical lessons I learnt during training was that all limits are in our heads. The trainers were ruthless, but they did an amazing job of preparing me to operate at my maximum potential,’ says Capt. Pradeep, the training regimen having sculpted his already wiry 5-foot-9-inch frame into raw sinew.

  Kashmir had not been far from Capt. Pradeep’s mind ever since he had signed up for the Territorial Army in 2009. Regardless of where his work took him, he made sure he kept a finger on the troubled state’s pulse. Entries in his personal diary capture how Kashmir was beset with problems at the time, with a sharp escalation in unrest after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s killing in July 2016, and the flare-up of tensions ahead of the by-elections to the Srinagar and Anantnag Lok Sabha constituencies in April 2017. The diary, his constant companion, details other distressing symptoms of a situation spinning out of control—the swelling crowds at terrorists’ funerals, the fury of protesters hurling stones at security men, the surge in anti-India protests, the disturbing images of teenage students clashing with the police, and worse.

  ‘There is no way to sugarcoat the truth that Kashmir was absolutely shaken by a destructive spiral of violence,’ says Capt. Pradeep, flipping through the diary.

  It was against this backdrop of heightened turbulence in the Kashmir Valley that the operation assigned to Pradeep by his CO assumed greater significance. And he didn’t have to be told twice what to do next.

  Vital to the effective conduct of army operations is the enormously difficult business of gathering and interpreting intelligence, which requires unsparing effort, skill and patience. The success of a mission depends, unwaveringly, on how good the intelligence is.

  The scale of the task before Capt. Pradeep was clear to him from the moment the words left his CO’s mouth. And before he hunkered down to sleep that wind-whipped night, Capt. Pradeep wrote a tentative to-do list in the same diary. Activating a carefully cultivated network of informants on either side of the LoC topped the list. He would also need to work with units specializing in diverse intelligence collection disciplines, such as human, technical, communications, electronic and imagery. The different strands would need to come together to form a clearer picture of the mission. The greater the number of strands, the sharper the picture.

  Preparing the commando squads for the job ahead was the least of Capt. Pradeep’s worries, since Special Forces units train hard every day for some of the Army’s most dangerous and secret missions. One of the elements critical to the mission’s success would be the difficult task of denying Pakistani infiltrators the use of well-known routes across the LoC through increased and targeted surveillance. It is no secret that despite the Army’s best efforts to hold them off, infiltrators manage to exploit the blind spots produced by the rough terrain to sneak into the state.

  And since this was Pakistan the men were dealing with, they weren’t just up against terrorist infiltrators, but also Pakistan Army units that actively aided their crossing of the LoC. In the world of Pakistani terror schooling, infiltration operations were the ultimate job placement.

  Capt. Pradeep, like all military men operating in Kashmir, was fully aware of the dual face of the adversary—civilian youth honed into dangerous terrorists by a sharp, focused military machinery. And, for the job at hand, Capt. Pradeep knew that the Pakistani Army posts across the LoC in Uri that had steadily provided logistical support to infiltrators could not be allowed to slip under the radar.

  ‘Following through with each element of the broad plan was crucial. We still had a long way ahead of us and had to go about our business keeping a low profile to avoid alerting people across the LoC about Special Forces involvement,’ says Capt. Pradeep.

  He spent the next three weeks shaping a plan of action, ticking off his to-do list and working to narrow down the enormous amount of information he had collected in a few short days. He knew that this was far from being a ‘wham-bam’ operation. Success, Capt. Pradeep knew, would rest on a multi-pronged approach that drew on the strengths of key local Army units, especially the electronic warfare detachment, whose primary responsibility was to listen in on terror-related chatter across the LoC. He was assured of their unstinting support.

  Before Capt. Pradeep’s arrival in Uri, there had been a steady flow of broad, general warnings of a major infiltration attempt by a group of military-trained suicide attackers, aided by a Pakistani Army Mujahid battalion. He knew that such alerts were not uncommon and seldom served as actionable intelligence for a successful operation. It was the dispiriting old maxim of intelligence: only a tiny percentage of all warnings resulted in anything meaningful at all, let alone a successful operation.

  ‘It is no exaggeration that we are swamped with a number of alerts every day. Rarely do one or two inputs out of, say, ten carry any real intelligence value. But no input is ignored,’ says Capt. Pradeep.

  There were plenty of dots that he had to connect in the right order to generate that elusive big picture of a major infiltration attempt—the where, the when and, crucially, with what strength. For days, Capt. Pradeep thoroughly reviewed volumes of fresh intelligence data and cross-checked it for accuracy with multiple sources, including his informants on the ground on both sides of the LoC. He prayed for a breakthrough.

  On 10 May, after he called his wife to wish her on their anniversary and spent some time in the dormitory with the Special Forces men, Capt. Pradeep returned to the camp’s war room to continue the hunt for intelligence. By noon, it became clear that the Pakistani Army’s 652 Mujahid Battalion, the ‘Mountain Tigers’ based across the LoC in Chakothi, was very likely to be the unit that planned to ‘administer’ the looming infiltration. Detailed analysis of intercepted communication by Capt. Pradeep revealed that terrorists belonging to Pakistan’s two most formidable terrorist groups, the LeT and the JeM, would be launched from the notorious Sugna post to enter Uri at an appropriate time.

  In the war room, Capt. Pradeep also received a crucial audio report from the electronic warfare unit he had enlisted for help.

  ‘Mehmaan aa rahe hain. Bhejne ki tayyarian shuru karein (The guests are coming. Begin preparations to dispatch them).’ The audio intercept of a piece of communication from the Pakistani Army post to a terror launch pad seemed to confirm, at the very least, that an infiltration attempt was afoot.

  ‘Raw data had been distilled into possibly accurate information. The attackers were coming. The likely route they would take was now practically known. It was hard to predict the exact timing, though,’ Capt. Pradeep says.

  No amount of intelligence can conclusively establish the precise date and time of infiltration activity. The likelihood of plans changing at the last minute is a near certainty, the modus operandi, in fact, of the Pakistani Army. But what seemed certain by this time was that the countdown had begun.

  Briefing the CO that evening, like he did every day, Capt. Pradeep presented his recommendations based on an analysis of all the intelligence he had—what was made available to him and what he had additionally gathered. The ‘unwanted guests’ were likely to try their luck in the last week of May, he said.

  At the base, Special Forces squads were busy doing what they do all year round—training for the worst possible situations and the most difficult missions. Capt. Pradeep remembers the training regimen that involved each commando firing hundreds of rounds every day, irrespective of whether a mission was at hand or not. War readiness was a defining requirement. Once a mission had been assigned, there would be no time to train.

  Three squads, consisting of six soldiers each, were now training to be a part of Capt. Pradeep’s upcoming operation. Two additional squads would provide backup. As mission leader, he was now armed with enough intelligence to brief the squads about how things were likely to unfold and where they would lie in ambush for their Pakistani ‘guests’.

  ‘Humare paas pukki information hai ki yeh log Sugna post se launch honge. Launch hone ke baad yeh KDK nallah ke raaste se ayeng
e LoC paar karne ke liye. Hum inko wahin par khatam kar denge (We have solid information that these people will be launched from the Sugna post. After being launched, they will take the route through KDK nallah to cross the LoC. We will finish them off there),’ Capt. Pradeep told his men during a briefing using a sand model of the Uri sector, which contained detailed features of mountains, valleys and the LoC itself. The men knew that the KDK nallah was a notorious blind spot.

  The sand model was necessary for such a briefing, even though the Special Forces men knew the area supremely well. This was, in every sense, their backyard. But there could be no mistakes, no assumptions and no short measures before a mission as delicate and dangerous as this one.

  ‘Abhi yeh clear nahin hai ki yeh fidayeen dasta PoK se kab rawana hoga. Par hum apne kaam par abhi se lag jayenge (It is not yet clear when the terrorists will leave PoK. But we will begin our work now),’ Capt. Pradeep said.

  The area was now under intense covert surveillance day and night. With indeterminate intelligence on the date and time of the infiltration, Capt. Pradeep decided to take no chances. On 22 May, he ordered the first of his Special Forces squads to proceed to the likely ambush site along the LoC, near the Indian Army’s Chabuk post, to make sure the infiltrators could spring no surprises. The men rolled out from the camp in a jeep that would drop them off near a trail they would trek to get to the LoC. Vehicular sounds needed to be kept to a minimum. Pakistan’s own highly evolved intelligence networks could smell a Special Forces man from a mile away.

  That morning, Capt. Pradeep had woken up with a stinging pain in his bloodshot eyes. With one squad dispatched to the LoC, and the CO waiting for a morning briefing on his next step, there couldn’t have been a worse time to contract conjunctivitis.

  ‘Arya, stay the hell away from me. I don’t want to see you within 10 miles of the squads. If you are still harbouring any desire to lead this operation, go see a doctor now,’ the CO snapped.

  Capt. Pradeep knew he was right. On his way to the field hospital, he felt miserable thinking that the mission may just have ended for him even before it began. The doctor sent him back with a small bag of medicines and much-needed assurance that the infection would go away soon.

  ‘It was a nightmare. I didn’t come all the way to Uri to let an eye infection ruin everything,’ he says. By that evening, fortunately, the infection had resolved itself.

  Preparations for the ambush began in full swing 22 May onwards. The Special Forces squads, fully kitted out with their assault weapons and body armour, were assigned to the operational area in rotation to keep an eye on terrorist movement along the KDK nallah.

  ‘When a Special Forces team waits in ambush, it’s not like we just sit in one place. We sit, we move, we sit, we move. It allows us to cover a larger area and hunt better,’ Capt. Pradeep says.

  Every step had to be taken carefully since the area was peppered with landmines, a legacy from a series of conflicts in 1965, 1971 and even the 1999 Kargil War. It is standard practice for the Army to mark minefields, but these hidden killers are known to drift because of extreme weather conditions, shifting of soil and landslides. Soldiers have blundered into minefields along the LoC, especially in the Baramulla sector, despite mine-risk education to prevent death and injury from these deadly explosive devices.

  ‘A landmine is a weapon of war that treats friends and foes alike. The mines presented a peril to the squads. The men had to proceed with extreme caution,’ says an officer from one of Capt. Pradeep’s squads.

  The next stage of the operation involved planting radio-controlled IEDs along the expected entry routes and testing signal strength to detonate explosives from a distance. Stealth was crucial. Manoeuvres were carried out under the cover of darkness, with the commandos taking every precaution to avoid detection.

  Numerous reconnaissance missions to collect intelligence and scout out this particular stretch of the LoC followed. The squads went on night-time patrols, remaining unseen during the day.

  ‘We have a real problem in this sector. Dense foliage across the LoC offers the infiltrators excellent camouflage. We don’t enjoy that advantage on our side,’ says Capt. Pradeep.

  After four days of non-stop alert in the area of expected infiltration, Capt. Pradeep received a late-night phone call on 26 May. It was one of his most trusted informants, a man he had cultivated over two years and someone Capt. Pradeep had been hoping he would hear from. This was a man who operated on both sides of the LoC, but Capt. Pradeep had learnt to trust him.

  In a hushed voice, the caller informed Capt. Pradeep that the infiltrators were now being guided by the Pakistani Army’s Sugna post and that they would attempt to cross the LoC on the night of 28 or 29 May. The information not only confirmed much of the intelligence Capt. Pradeep and his men had gathered over two weeks, but provided them with that final bit they needed to sharpen their plan of action. A two-day window for an infiltration is a highly specific piece of information, a fragment of data in an otherwise chaotic, unfixable ocean of vague intelligence.

  Capt. Pradeep thanked the informant and hung up, immediately ordering four squads to stand by to head to the Chabuk post the following evening. The post was a 90-minute drive from the Special Forces base.

  It was time to move, and fast. Capt. Pradeep made a phone call to his wife, telling her he would be off the grid for the next few days and that he would call her as soon as he was ‘free’. Deepa Arya listened in silence, only reminding him of her words from a few days before, ‘I’m not collecting your medals.’

  As planned, two of the squads would stay at Chabuk for backup and the other two would set out on foot for the last leg to join the squad that had already been positioned in the area on 22 May across the KDK nallah and directly facing Pakistan’s Mujahid battalion post on the other side of the LoC. But just when everything seemed to be moving as per plan, the commandos encountered an expected hurdle the next day, on 27 May, which threatened the stealth necessary for their mission.

  Sabzar Ahmad Bhat, a Hizbul Mujahideen commander and successor to Burhan Wani, had been killed in a firefight with security forces late the previous night in south Kashmir’s restive Tral, a hotbed of Hizbul terror. Bhat’s killing had set off a wave of protests across Kashmir.

  ‘Bhat’s killing and the ensuing violence was unforeseen. Moving out of the base presented a challenge because of the heightened possibility of being seen. But we somehow managed to reach Chabuk by nightfall on 27 May,’ Capt. Pradeep says.

  The Special Forces squads were armed with a full array of weapons, including their standard-issue Israeli Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles, Colt M4A1 carbines, Uzi silenced submachine guns, Pulemyot Kalashnikova general-purpose machine guns, C90 disposable rocket launchers, UBGLs and 9-mm pistols. Some commandos carried two pistols, a personal choice. Each man was armed with six grenades and four magazines of ammunition. They were kitted out for a short, sharp firefight.

  From the Chabuk post, large midsummer storm clouds quickly rolled in, raining torrents on the two squads as they departed over slippery ground and up pine-clad slopes towards the LoC.

  Colt M4A1 carbine

  ‘Sir, aaj raat ko contact hone ke kitne chances hain? (What are the chances of establishing contact with the terrorists tonight?),’ asked Capt. Pradeep’s buddy soldier, a Havildar whom the officer affectionately called Hero.

  ‘Ho bhi sakta hai, Hero. Jitna jaldi ho utna accha hai (It’s possible. The sooner the better),’ said Capt. Pradeep, remembering that his informant had indicated a window that began the following night. The Havildar’s question wasn’t surprising. Armed and in position, nothing occupies a commando’s mind more than the prospect of coming in contact with the enemy. As soon as possible.

  The rain had weakened to a drizzle by the time the two squads reached the appointed rendezvous point, where the first squad, sent there five days earlier, was holding fort barely 100 m from the LoC.

  ‘Sir, we haven’t spotted any activity yet. It’s
all quiet here,’ one of the commandos reported to Capt. Pradeep as soon as he arrived. The commando was holding an HHTI, a sensor device that provides clear infrared images in complete darkness.

  Capt. Pradeep’s informant had said the infiltration would happen on 28 or 29 May, but that didn’t mean plans from the other side couldn’t change. The squads carried out reconnaissance patrols through the night, taking up their pre-assigned positions long before dawn broke over the hills. If the commandos could prowl in darkness on patrol, daybreak meant complete concealment.

  ‘We had to lie low during the day. There was little else we could do. One wrong move and all the intelligence we had gathered would be useless,’ says Capt. Pradeep. Hunkered down only 100 m from the LoC, the day was spent with nearly no movement save for a thin rotation of patrolling commandos to keep the proverbial knife edge pointed and ready.

  ‘Nobody likes the day. It’s at night that we go to war,’ says an officer from the squad deployed in the area that day.

  As the sun set on 28 May, Capt. Pradeep gathered his men for a night briefing. The two squads would be on an even sharper state of alert, if that were possible. The third squad had spread out and positioned itself some distance away to cover more area. He felt an inexplicable pang of certainty that his informant was about to be proven devastatingly correct. Two hours later, he saw the confirmation on a thermal imager in the hands of a soldier near him.

  At 10.30 p.m., the dark infrared image of an infiltrator entered the frame, his body heat helping draw a sharp picture against the cold, wet surroundings. In a crouched walk, he was moving forward from the expected direction of the KDK nallah. Within moments, the image of a second terrorist became visible on the thermal imager’s monitor, followed by a third and then a fourth. Two more terrorists could be seen 200 m behind them in the nallah.