OPERATION SAFAPORA 1998
TLDR: A team of crack troops from the army’s famed 3 Kumaon (Rifles) and 9 Dogra battalions were assaulted a cave terrorist hideout at 15,000 feet, with 10 afghani and paki terrorists. The battle was fought in 4-5 feet deep of snow, and the army managed to eliminate 6 terrorists and apprehend one, while the other three are presumably dead. The bodies of the 6 dead terrorists were literally dragged down from the ravines like war trophies, and their bloods made a path from the cave to the brigade HQ
. Army suffered ZERO casualties.
CHANDIGARH: As you read the newspaper this morning, 23 years back to the time a bloody battle was on in the high snows of the
Kashmir valley. The blood of seven
terrorists, including a
Pakistan Army regular, was seeping into the ivory snows of Safapora, outside their cave hideouts blasted by infantry’s 84-millimetre Carl Gustav rocket launchers. The crack team of 3 Kumaon and 9 Dogra had released Russian-made special incendiary munitions deep into the recesses of snow and rock, and any terrorist who fled the ‘crematory fire’ was nailed by the troops who slithered and slid down the slopes in hot pursuit. The souls of 23 Kashmiri Pandits slaughtered by this Harkat-ul-Ansar gang 19 days ago on January 25, 1998, had found partial peace.
The tactical battles waged in high altitude to nail the Wandhama killers spilled over to Valentine's Day, 1998. The brilliance of these operations would foreshadow the similar eviction in the
Kargil War
Phones rang in the Army headquarters as the victorious troops dragged the seven bodies down from 11,000 feet in moonlight, the clothes ripped off by the abrasion of stone and hard soil. ‘Operation Safapora’ was reported over two days and nights live by this correspondent from those heights, accompanying troops in fire contact with the terrorists. The Prime Minister's Office was relayed the news through the Defense Ministry. The Army had kept its promise of swift retribution made to the-then prime minister, I K Gujral, on January 28, 1998.The
Wandhama massacre had shaken India. On January 28, 1998, a worried Gujral and his principal secretary,
N N Vohra, flew down to Ganderbal in a helicopter to take stock of the situation, which had seemed returning to normal with an elected state government in place freshly. The VVIPs joined the mourners at Wandhama the same day. They were received at the Ganderbal helipad by the-then general officer commanding (GOC), 8 Mountain Division, Major General J B S Yadava. "After briefing the dignitaries on the critical situation, I assured them that within a month, the killers would be dealt with. True to that and within a month of the massacre, the Army had nailed 11 of the 12 terrorists responsible,” Lieutenant General (retd) Yadava told TOI.
ISI’s message
The Wandhama massacre was no ordinary incident of terror. Its brutality dovetailed with the ISI’s politico-strategic aims. “The situation was fast returning to normal in the Valley, January 26 was Republic Day, and January 27 the start of the winter games at Gulmar. The massacre’s timing was ISI’s message to the world that the situation was far from normal, contrary to what the winter games were slotted to convey.
To the Kashmiris, the message was that the terrorists called the shots. “The operational instructions that I got after the massacre from the late 15 Corps commander Lt Gen Krishan Pal were to restore peace in the area and facilitate the elected government in carrying out its mandate,” said Lt Gen Yadava, whose first move after the massacre was to realign the area of responsibility of 5 Sector RR and 70 Infantry Brigade and get the latter formation to take charge of Wandhama
Target locked
After the informers located the terrorists in the remote caves of Safapora outside Ganderbal, just 3 kilometres from Wandhama, 70 Brigade was tasked with settling the score. Even though his troops were neither trained nor oriented towards offensive operations in high altitude, the-then 70 Brigade commander, R K Shivrain of the Parachute Regiment, seized the opportunity with the innovative and bold idea of surprising the enemy from the least expected and most difficult approach. The brigade moved, later, to Kargil in 1999 under the command of Chandigarh-based Brigadier Devinder Singh, now retired, and evicted the Pakistani soldiers from their extensive and penetrative lodgements in the Batalik sector.
The dark climb
The operational plan of Safapora was to climb to the highest points (3138 and 3297) at night and then roll down on to the terrorist hideouts from above. Dehradun-based Maj Gen Shivrain (retd) told TOI: “Initially, CO, 3 Kumaon, Colonel Sudhir Uppal, was not very enthused about its tactical salience but I was convinced it would work. I offered to accompany Uppal and the troops in their 5,000 feet ascent to Point 3297. That settled the doubts and the operation was launched. The 3 Kumaon troops hit the terrorists at first light on February 13, 1998, and a battle raged in 4-5 feet of snow, as the latter tried to flee. Possibly, three escaped or were burnt alive in the caves, while seven were accounted for by 3 Kumaon and 9 Dogra.”
As you read the newspaper this morning, 23 years back to the time a bloody battle was on in the high snows of the Kashmir valley
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