Indian Special Forces (archived)

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su35

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How many people remember the battle in another country that India won in 1988? Published June 17, 2016 SOURCE:SCROLL Between 1987 and 1990, India did the unthinkable when it agreed to send its military abroad to participate in active operations, the likes of which had never been seen after Independence. This was the first time that India had operated beyond its territory without wearing the United Nations blue helmet and actively engaged an enemy that had not threatened India’s immediate security concerns. Both the operations were sanctioned under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and while one ended in abject failure, the other was an astounding success. The failure was Operation Pawan, India’s ill-advised three-year misadventure in Sri Lanka, which claimed the lives of over 1,400 Indian military personnel, and ended with the troops being brought back home in 1990, unclear about why they were sent in the first place. But the military intervention that succeeded was Operation Cactus, a short, sharp intervention in the Maldives that began on November 4, 1988 and ended in a matter of days. The story of that operation has been often told and discussed in bits and parts, but has never been put together in a coherent narrative. Such a story is now available as Operation Cactus: Mission Impossible in the Maldives, a slim book launched on its app by the new publishing company Juggernaut. Authored by Sushant Singh, a former military engineer, it is a tale that reminds us of a key era in India’s military history that ought to raise a lot of questions that are more than relevant even today. (Disclosure: I have known Sushant Singh for several years and have enjoyed many insightful discussions with him on strategic issues.) Singh’s book is lean and tight, written as a racy thriller that is more Alistair Maclean than BH Liddell-Hart. Clearly, this is meant for an audience which wants to read a slim book that is fast and entertaining. This book is both, written in the form of reportage as Singh tracks down many key participants in that operation and weaves their narratives into his own. The crisis and the response On November 3, 1988, India received a distress call from the President of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, to the effect that his country was under siege. Sri Lankan mercenaries had attacked key installations in a bid to overthrow his government. The Sri Lankan Tamils, owing allegiance to the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, were led by Abdullah Luthufi and his associate Sikka Ahmed Ismail Manik, who had landed on the island nation from speedboats and quickly overcome the rudimentary defence forces present. President Gayoom had taken shelter in a safe house and sent out SOS messages to several countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and the US. But it was left to the Indians, led by a young and inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi, to react immediately and launch the most ambitious airborne operation since the 1971 war for Bangladesh. Many of the military aspects of the operation are now part of oft-repeated accounts of how ill-prepared India really was. It did not even have a map of the Maldives, and it was left to Brigadier FC “Bull” Bulsara, commander of the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade, to source every scrap of intelligence he could get. Bulsara, who had commanded the elite 9 Para (Special Forces), was a battle-hardened veteran and didn’t care much for hierarchy when it came to plain speaking. He sent his officers across Agra city to grab any maps or tourist brochures they could find, so that he could plan such an intricate operation. When the first Indian Air Force aircraft took off, they had these tourist maps to guide them across the tiny island nation. Where Singh clearly succeeds is in bringing together the personal memories of some key participants. AK Banerjee, who was then the Indian High Commissioner to the Maldives, was in India when the coup attempt unfolded. His inputs would prove crucial to the success of the mission. During an operational planning session, he was the first to notice that the military were looking at the wrong map and were all set to land at a disused airport, far from their intended target! His intervention ensured that the Indian forces eventually homed in on the correct airport in Male, the capital of the Maldives. Other principal characters such as Ronen Sen, then serving in Gandhi’s Prime Minister’s Office, Brigadier VP Malik (later army chief), and Group Captain Ashok Goel (later Air Marshal) acted as decisive players in a moment of crisis. A book that is mostly dependent on the narratives of individuals has its pitfalls. In this case, some crucial details slip through the cracks. While Singh writes that the plan to send in the newly created National Security Guard was “shot down” by the army, the facts appear to be otherwise. The then Inspector General (Operations) in the NSG, Major General Naresh Kumar, objected to the proposal on very sound military grounds. He pointed out that the NSG was a hostage rescue force and many of them were not trained for parachute jumps. In case the Hulule airport needed to be taken by force, a parachute jump would have greater chances of success than the NSG. This is the reason that the Para Brigade was chosen for the task and not the NSG. Another assertion in the book is that the preparedness of the Para Brigade was at “half-mast”. However, the After Action Report, a key document in every military formation records that the troops were ready to be deployed even before the Indian Air Force planes were. In fact, as per standard protocol, one battalion of the brigade is always on standby to be deployed in six hours and one of its companies to move out in just two hours. The author also points out that India is still ill-prepared to undertake such missions today, but does not elaborate on it. This could have added much more heft to the book. Eroded capabilities The 1980s were, in many ways, a traumatic period for the Indian armed forces. They were thrust into Operation Blue Star, which was an unmitigated disaster and also led to the worst mutinies in India’s post-independence history. The period also saw prolonged deployment in Sri Lanka, fighting an enemy that had been trained by India through the external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. India almost came close to war when the Indian army undertook Operation Brasstacks, an ambitious military exercise in the deserts of Rajasthan. The Pakistanis quickly mobilised their military, thinking that this was an impending invasion. What remains largely unstated, but does come through in the book, is the speed and determination with which India reacted to an international crisis. While this is clearly beyond the scope of the book, it raises pertinent questions about the current status of India’s military. Despite being better trained and equipped today, chances are that the Indian military will be unable to react to an international exigency like it did in 1988. That’s because the military has seen a steady erosion of its capabilities since then, marred by faulty planning and ill-advised decisions. It is interesting to note that even though Operation Cactus was led by an experienced Special Forces officer, there were no special operations that had been planned before the paratroopers landed. This was also because the parachute battalions operate with a mass that the Special Forces lack. As a result, the parachute regiments have always been considered the “rapid reaction force” that can immediately respond to what the military calls “Out of Area” contingencies. Unfortunately, in the two decades since Operation Cactus, the Parachute battalions have been forcibly converted to Special Forces, which operate in small teams, paring down India’s capabilities for Out of Area contingencies, even as the nature of future threats is quickly evolving into battles far away from India’s shores. Operation Cactus: Mission Impossible in the Maldives, Sushant Singh, Juggernaut App. Saikat Datta is the author of India’s Special Forces and a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi. All views expressed in the article are personal. Posted in India Search Bar Categories Africa Asia Europe Exclusive India My Take N & S America Follow us Copyright © Idrw.org 2006. All Rights Reserved.Fair Use idrw.org

idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website , Kindly don't post our articles on other copycat websites http://idrw.org/many-people-remember-battle-another-country-india-won-1988/ .

Want to know more about this operation and about the specifed book
 

Bornubus

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How many people remember the battle in another country that India won in 1988? Published June 17, 2016 SOURCE:SCROLL Between 1987 and 1990, India did the unthinkable when it agreed to send its military abroad to participate in active operations, the likes of which had never been seen after Independence. This was the first time that India had operated beyond its territory without wearing the United Nations blue helmet and actively engaged an enemy that had not threatened India’s immediate security concerns. Both the operations were sanctioned under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and while one ended in abject failure, the other was an astounding success. The failure was Operation Pawan, India’s ill-advised three-year misadventure in Sri Lanka, which claimed the lives of over 1,400 Indian military personnel, and ended with the troops being brought back home in 1990, unclear about why they were sent in the first place. But the military intervention that succeeded was Operation Cactus, a short, sharp intervention in the Maldives that began on November 4, 1988 and ended in a matter of days. The story of that operation has been often told and discussed in bits and parts, but has never been put together in a coherent narrative. Such a story is now available as Operation Cactus: Mission Impossible in the Maldives, a slim book launched on its app by the new publishing company Juggernaut. Authored by Sushant Singh, a former military engineer, it is a tale that reminds us of a key era in India’s military history that ought to raise a lot of questions that are more than relevant even today. (Disclosure: I have known Sushant Singh for several years and have enjoyed many insightful discussions with him on strategic issues.) Singh’s book is lean and tight, written as a racy thriller that is more Alistair Maclean than BH Liddell-Hart. Clearly, this is meant for an audience which wants to read a slim book that is fast and entertaining. This book is both, written in the form of reportage as Singh tracks down many key participants in that operation and weaves their narratives into his own. The crisis and the response On November 3, 1988, India received a distress call from the President of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, to the effect that his country was under siege. Sri Lankan mercenaries had attacked key installations in a bid to overthrow his government. The Sri Lankan Tamils, owing allegiance to the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, were led by Abdullah Luthufi and his associate Sikka Ahmed Ismail Manik, who had landed on the island nation from speedboats and quickly overcome the rudimentary defence forces present. President Gayoom had taken shelter in a safe house and sent out SOS messages to several countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and the US. But it was left to the Indians, led by a young and inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi, to react immediately and launch the most ambitious airborne operation since the 1971 war for Bangladesh. Many of the military aspects of the operation are now part of oft-repeated accounts of how ill-prepared India really was. It did not even have a map of the Maldives, and it was left to Brigadier FC “Bull” Bulsara, commander of the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade, to source every scrap of intelligence he could get. Bulsara, who had commanded the elite 9 Para (Special Forces), was a battle-hardened veteran and didn’t care much for hierarchy when it came to plain speaking. He sent his officers across Agra city to grab any maps or tourist brochures they could find, so that he could plan such an intricate operation. When the first Indian Air Force aircraft took off, they had these tourist maps to guide them across the tiny island nation. Where Singh clearly succeeds is in bringing together the personal memories of some key participants. AK Banerjee, who was then the Indian High Commissioner to the Maldives, was in India when the coup attempt unfolded. His inputs would prove crucial to the success of the mission. During an operational planning session, he was the first to notice that the military were looking at the wrong map and were all set to land at a disused airport, far from their intended target! His intervention ensured that the Indian forces eventually homed in on the correct airport in Male, the capital of the Maldives. Other principal characters such as Ronen Sen, then serving in Gandhi’s Prime Minister’s Office, Brigadier VP Malik (later army chief), and Group Captain Ashok Goel (later Air Marshal) acted as decisive players in a moment of crisis. A book that is mostly dependent on the narratives of individuals has its pitfalls. In this case, some crucial details slip through the cracks. While Singh writes that the plan to send in the newly created National Security Guard was “shot down” by the army, the facts appear to be otherwise. The then Inspector General (Operations) in the NSG, Major General Naresh Kumar, objected to the proposal on very sound military grounds. He pointed out that the NSG was a hostage rescue force and many of them were not trained for parachute jumps. In case the Hulule airport needed to be taken by force, a parachute jump would have greater chances of success than the NSG. This is the reason that the Para Brigade was chosen for the task and not the NSG. Another assertion in the book is that the preparedness of the Para Brigade was at “half-mast”. However, the After Action Report, a key document in every military formation records that the troops were ready to be deployed even before the Indian Air Force planes were. In fact, as per standard protocol, one battalion of the brigade is always on standby to be deployed in six hours and one of its companies to move out in just two hours. The author also points out that India is still ill-prepared to undertake such missions today, but does not elaborate on it. This could have added much more heft to the book. Eroded capabilities The 1980s were, in many ways, a traumatic period for the Indian armed forces. They were thrust into Operation Blue Star, which was an unmitigated disaster and also led to the worst mutinies in India’s post-independence history. The period also saw prolonged deployment in Sri Lanka, fighting an enemy that had been trained by India through the external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. India almost came close to war when the Indian army undertook Operation Brasstacks, an ambitious military exercise in the deserts of Rajasthan. The Pakistanis quickly mobilised their military, thinking that this was an impending invasion. What remains largely unstated, but does come through in the book, is the speed and determination with which India reacted to an international crisis. While this is clearly beyond the scope of the book, it raises pertinent questions about the current status of India’s military. Despite being better trained and equipped today, chances are that the Indian military will be unable to react to an international exigency like it did in 1988. That’s because the military has seen a steady erosion of its capabilities since then, marred by faulty planning and ill-advised decisions. It is interesting to note that even though Operation Cactus was led by an experienced Special Forces officer, there were no special operations that had been planned before the paratroopers landed. This was also because the parachute battalions operate with a mass that the Special Forces lack. As a result, the parachute regiments have always been considered the “rapid reaction force” that can immediately respond to what the military calls “Out of Area” contingencies. Unfortunately, in the two decades since Operation Cactus, the Parachute battalions have been forcibly converted to Special Forces, which operate in small teams, paring down India’s capabilities for Out of Area contingencies, even as the nature of future threats is quickly evolving into battles far away from India’s shores. Operation Cactus: Mission Impossible in the Maldives, Sushant Singh, Juggernaut App. Saikat Datta is the author of India’s Special Forces and a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi. All views expressed in the article are personal. Posted in India Search Bar Categories Africa Asia Europe Exclusive India My Take N & S America Follow us Copyright © Idrw.org 2006. All Rights Reserved.Fair Use idrw.org

idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website , Kindly don't post our articles on other copycat websites http://idrw.org/many-people-remember-battle-another-country-india-won-1988/ .

Want to know more about this operation and about the specifed book
when the first contingent of IPKF troops arrived in Sri Lanka they were armed with 5 kg SLR against LTTE armed with AK.

Around 1 lakh AK 47 were imported in the same period.
 

su35

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when the first contingent of IPKF troops arrived in Sri Lanka they were armed with 5 kg SLR against LTTE armed with AK.

Around 1 lakh AK 47 were imported in the same period.
Really Amazed! RAW taught LTTE but LTTE were armed with Ak while IPKF with SLR.
Can you list out some major blunder which lead to failure of operation Pawan. In that time Para SF were armed with different wepoan or same wepoan?
 

EliteFoxtrot

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when the first contingent of IPKF troops arrived in Sri Lanka they were armed with 5 kg SLR against LTTE armed with AK.

Around 1 lakh AK 47 were imported in the same period.
The Ak's and their ca[abilities were discovered when paras get their hand on the captured riffles from dead rebels, they were really impressed by the performance of the gun cause they have only SLR in their hands, but the Ak's didnt imported untill we Kashmir Insurgency knocked our doors.

According to Prakash Katoch sir
 

armyofhind

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The Ak's and their ca[abilities were discovered when paras get their hand on the captured riffles from dead rebels, they were really impressed by the performance of the gun cause they have only SLR in their hands, but the Ak's didnt imported untill we Kashmir Insurgency knocked our doors.

According to Prakash Katoch sir
exactly.. very true indeed.. Para SF, or at that time, Paracommandos as they were called.. the gentlemen found that the AK was much better when it came to fighting in close quarters in the jungles of Sri Lanka..
Captured AKs during that time were promptly put into service..

The Jaffna University Helidrop mightve been a disaster, but Op Pawan in itself was a success.. the casualty rate was high sure, but the objective of seizing the Jaffna Peninsula from the LTTE was met.. something which the Sri Lankan Army had been trying to accomplish for years.

And interesting tidbit, a special unit called Tiger Troop was formed out of chosen men from the 2 Paracommando battalions in the theater... who went after the leadership of LTTE cadres based on real time intelligence..
Radio intercepts of the LTTE indicate that these men were feared the most by the LTTE.
 

rishivashista13

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The Ak's and their ca[abilities were discovered when paras get their hand on the captured riffles from dead rebels, they were really impressed by the performance of the gun cause they have only SLR in their hands, but the Ak's didnt imported untill we Kashmir Insurgency knocked our doors.

According to Prakash Katoch sir
So that means , during The Jaffna University Helidrop our special forces were armed with SLR !!!!
Shit man !

Sent from my Micromax Q380 using Tapatalk
 

EliteFoxtrot

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Yes they were armed with SLR and precisely dont have any knowledge and idea about who are they facing,intelligence was sleeping that time and as a result we lost too many of our men.
 

Bornubus

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Really Amazed! RAW taught LTTE but LTTE were armed with Ak while IPKF with SLR.
Can you list out some major blunder which lead to failure of operation Pawan. In that time Para SF were armed with different wepoan or same wepoan?

The Ak's and their ca[abilities were discovered when paras get their hand on the captured riffles from dead rebels, they were really impressed by the performance of the gun cause they have only SLR in their hands, but the Ak's didnt imported untill we Kashmir Insurgency knocked our doors.

According to Prakash Katoch sir
The capabilities of Klash was well known to IA since 1967 and especially 1971, when Army captured several Type 56 from Pakis.

The First troops who were Armed with AK were Tibetan SFF along with US M1 Carbine and M3 "Grease"

However, we order the AK in bulk (1 ~ lakh ) during the late 80s to be use by troops in CT ops, there was no RR back then.

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Jaffana Heli drop was a disaster for Para, a perfect ambush. It was not the last, there were several such incidents where gallant troops were besieged for days only to be relieved by Tanks and reinforcement.

Col Anil Kaul (kashmiri Pandit) lost his eye in one such relief while Current COAS Gen Suhag stand beside him when a RPG richotched the T 72 Turret and exploded over the Tank.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to Brigadier B D Mishra IPKF veteran, most of the casualties were because of lack of training in Urban warfare, lack of intelligence etc.

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Para SF armed with AK - IPKF


IMG-20150414-WA0017.jpg




Para SF Now


IMG-20150425-WA0000.jpg
 

Bornubus

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about col kaul

----------------------------------------------------------







When Anil Kaul went to Sri Lanka with the IPKF he knew little how eventful it would prove to be. His war was short but it brought him an award for valour and a set of troubles that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

BY PARTHA CHATTERJEE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARIKRISHNA KATRAGADDA

Colonel Anil Kaul, Vir Chakra, has a striking personality. In retirement, his body has lost some of its firmness, but behind his easy-going manner and charming smile is the steely mentality of a soldier. The patch over his lost right eye and a black leather casing on the stump of his left wrist add to his air of distinction.


Meeting him recently at his ground floor flat in Gurgaon, Haryana, adjoining Delhi, was a pleasant experience as usual, and an educative one. He makes incisive observations in typically laconic manner. It was a Sunday and one had cried off from a lunch invitation because of a prior appointment.

It was just after 2 pm. The family was finishing lunch. Rekha, recovering from chemotherapy after complicated brain surgery, welcomed me with gentleness and warmth.

Anil Kaul came straight to the point, “Aap toh formality mein par gaye”, meaning I was being formal, lunch was still on the table and that I was welcome to join in. Gitanjali was there with her energetic and naughty four-year-old Antariksh. Aradhana was there too, her eight-month-old son, Vidur, asleep in another room. As Aradhana and Gitanjali left for a while on their errands, the little one woke up.

Rekha had by then retired to her room for the afternoon. Kaul fetched his grandson and, in between making soothing sounds to the baby, courteously answered every question I asked. He seemed to be curious about a little chip-recorder being used to record this part of the interview.

The quiet, hour-long session was marked by his comments on how the army was not asserting itself enough to get retired officers and soldiers who, like him, are deemed to be suffering from 80 per cent disability, their legitimate benefits. He felt both the government’s and the army’s response to important questions related to the well-being of such defence personnel was at best lukewarm. It was an eye opener, the conversation with Kaul that afternoon.

However, he makes light of his disabilities. When I needed some extra information while writing this story, the colonel offered to send it across himself. He wrote about 1,000 words in a document, and added in the email: “Try using one eye to see and type all of the above with one hand… I just did.” That is a measure of his determination to be as independent as possible.

“Before I knew, it seemed I had received a straight right punch so to say to my chin. I saw some blood appear on my left hand and there was a sharp drop in my eyesight. Lt Colonel (now Lt Gen) Dalbir Singh, then Commanding Officer of 10 Para Commando, who was standing on the engine deck said to me, “Yaar what a close shave.” He suddenly saw me and the look on his face told me that something was very very wrong with me.”

Anil Kaul was an Armoured Corps officer in the Indian army and had a distinguished career. He was known for his sterling character when he wore the uniform, and that’s followed him to Civvy Street.


At the front

An account of his soldier’s life reads like fiction, a dangerous adventure from which he emerged alive, but not
unscathed. As Major Kaul, he was thrown into the tragic mis-adventure that was the Indian Peace Keeping
Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka, through which the Indian Government tried first to contain and then rout the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Ironically, the LTTE had been given sanctuary in India and even armed
and trained here.

In his autobiography, Better Dead than Disabled Kaul remembers: “It was October 12, 1987, exactly 5.55 pm as I was… coming out of the cupola of my T-72 tank on a steamy evening in an unknown place called Kokkuvil in the Jaffna district of Northern Sri Lanka.

“I froze in that confined space at what I saw. An LTTE militant stood at 60 meters aiming his rocket-propelled gun at my tank.

“In a flash he fired. Probably having lost his nerve he aimed too low. The projectile hit the left mudguard of the tank, but for some inexplicable reason did not explode. It then hit the side of the main gun and then exploded on top of the turret, all in a fraction of a second. Before I knew, it seemed I had received a straight right punch so to say to my chin. I saw some blood appear on my left hand and there was a sharp drop in my eyesight.

“Lt Colonel (now Lt Gen) Dalbir Singh, then Commanding Officer of 10 Para Commando, who was standing on the engine deck said to me, “Yaar what a close shave.”

He suddenly saw me and the look on his face told me that something was very very wrong with me. In that fraction of a second, as if it was a rewind of my entire life, thoughts raced through my life as to how and when I had landed myself in such a situation…

“I asked my gunner to pull out a first field dressing (FFD) which is standard equipment in a first aid box carried in each tank. To my horror, he replied that there was none. A roll of rifle cleaning cloth was pulled out and wrapped around what was once a perfect left hand.

“My towel was used to tie up the remnants of where my right eye once was. This having been done I slid back into the commander’s cupola, from where I conducted the rest of my part of my operation through the eyes and the voice of Lt Col Dalbir Singh.

“We soon got out of the precarious location we were in, made contact with the 13 Sikh Light Infantry battalion that we were to rescue in the first place, and then moved to an abandoned house near (the) Kankesanthurai (KKS)–Jaffna railway line.

The next few hours were spent in retrieving the Para Commandos from the Jaffna University where they had been surrounded by the LTTE.”


Some 60,000 army personnel—all ranks—retire every year. Where the hell does the money go? Instead of making fancy buildings for the AGIS why can they not release the money to
retired soldiers who have served the country for so long?

Sometime during the night Kaul was given a morphine injection. He drifted into a disturbed sleep. “I dreamt of the days in the salubrious environment of Srinagar in my grandfather’s lap and drove down the route of my journey to the battlefield… over the last thirty years.”



The IPKF’s presence in Sri Lanka was largely the result of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s inexperience and Sri Lankan President Junius Richard Jayewardene’s canniness. His logic was that since India had, in a way, instigated the Tigers to violence during Indira Gandhi’s second tenure (1980-84) as prime minister, it was her duty to rein them in. The Indian force landed in Sri Lanka in October 1987, (over) confident that the Tigers would surrender in a matter of days. The Indian contingent was hardly prepared even in terms of basic supplies, to fight the LTTE on its own terrain.

Neither the army nor the air force had been aware of the Tigers’ strength. Nor were they prepared adequately to take them on. The IPKF thought they were going to deal with a bunch of amateurs who could be routed easily. The force’s problems were exacerbated when the Sri Lankan Army, after having promised full support and co-operation, was confined to the barracks.

“My gunner explained that we had joined up and relieved 13 Sikh LI battalion and along with them moved to the university area after I got hit, and recovered most of the Para Commandos, dead, wounded or alive.

“Having extricated whoever we could we moved back to an abandoned house on the railway line only to realise that out of my three tanks, one had been left behind as it got bogged in the clayey soil obtaining there. Having offloaded the wounded. the other two tanks went back and pulled the third one in a recovery operation even the best of specialists will hesitate to undertake in daytime, let alone when we did it, in the middle of the night and under intermittent fire of the LTTE.

Botched operation

“Dalbir and I remained on the tanks as he was my eyes and ears, but orders to the tank crews were still originating from me,” Kaul remembers in his book.

He bristles even now at the memory of the IPKF’s poor show in Sri Lanka. Officers like Kaul and the soldiers under them were treated like cannon fodder. He feels the whole operation was botched.

Of the many incidents in his experience, he retails two. “One was the raising and training of the Citizens Volunteer Force (CVF) in May-June ’88 in IPKF-held areas and arming these cadres with AK-47 rifles against the 7.62 held by the IPKF. Both the trained cadres and the weapons passed on to the LTTE.” In other words, no one had bothered to do a background check on the trainees.

“The second (instance) of logistic importance was though a sea landing was contemplated at Trincomalee, the Landing Ship Tank (LST) INS Maggar could not accommodate the T-72 tank. Trials carried on even as late as 1989, when it was time to return.

“In October ’87 the loading of the T-72 in the IL-76 was an exercise in patience and perseverance of both the tank and aircraft crews. To say the least, without our Indian acumen for jugaad this would not have been possible.” In a Peter Sellers comedy, it would be riotously funny. In real life it was one more nail hammered into the force’s coffin.
And then there’s the point that the military had LTTE supremo Vellupillai Prabakaran in its sights more than once. “Four times the man went through our lines,” he recalls.

But they could not touch him or take him, a telling commentary on the unreal nature of the war they were fighting. The leader of the guerillas the army was fighting had immunity!

Stories about the logistical quagmire are seemingly endless. After the Jaffna operation, Kaul was trying to cope with the situation and his life-threatening injuries. He discovered that, “The Air Force had refused to fly its helicopters as some had been damaged during the landings in the university and the spare parts were only available in Chandigarh, which was quite a distance from the battlefield to say the least, and the Army ironically did not have any ambulance vehicles to carry its wounded to the forward aid posts or the field hospitals.

Designed to fail?

“I decided that a decision was the need of the hour and informed the Brigade Commander that my tanks were leaving for Palali, as I had completed the task assigned to me. He was welcome to put any number of casualties for their evacuation rearwards. I would also take the responsibility of running the gauntlet of the 15 km distance infested with LTTE militants.” 43 wounded personnel and 15 bodies were carried in three tanks.

“They were those who once wore the regimental colors of their respective regiments with pride: Specifically 4/5 GR (FF), 13 Sikh LI and 10 Para Commando. Three tanks with a severely injured officer, a severely shaken up JCO and a determined crew made the run of 15 km in approximately four hours and by 2 pm were back at our base in Palali, the same base we had set out of 36 hours ago.”

The loss of sight in the right eye and partial amputation of his left wrist due to the outset of gangrene from lack of even a first aid box did not end his army career. The Vir Chakra did come his way, but at enormous cost to life and limb, as in the case of his comrades.

“One operation of just 24 hours yielded 10 gallantry awards, four of them posthumous. As a remembrance I would like to mention their names… Dalbir Singh, Sheonan Singh, Deepak Gardener, Inder Bawa, Virender Singh, Subedar Sampuran Singh, Subedar Prem Thapa and Lance Naik Ganga Ram.”

His war was over. He had landed on October 12, 1987, and was out a couple of days afterwards. Kaul was evacuated to the Southern Command Military Hospital in Poona (Pune).

Kaul’s permanent duty station was Babina, a cantonment near Jhansi in central India, where he lived with his wife Rekha, daughters Gitanjali (10) and Aradhana (6), and Fluffy the Pomeranian. Rekha taught at the local army school and the girls studied at St Mark’s Convent.

Probably the first sign that all was not well was when Fluffy started “whimpering and whining uncontrollably”. The date was October 12. The Pomeranian apparently sensed that the master, so far away, was in grave danger.

As soon as she heard the news, Rekha set out on the long, nerve-wracking journey, accompanied by Regimental Dafadar Bhim Singh. Gitanjali and Aradhana stayed behind with their aunt, the CO’s wife, in Babina.

“In Bombay, she was escorted to a train that got to Poona later that night. The trip was fraught with uncertainty as information systems did not have any updates on my state and location. Though one commonality felt by her with immense pride and gratefulness was the reaction and attitude of unknown strangers, co-passengers and the general public to assist in whatever manner they could to alleviate her state of mind. In Poona, she was met at the Railway Station and taken straight to the ward where I was.” Rekha was at his bedside constantly after that. A third generation soldier, Kaul had married, inevitably, into another “army” family, virtually on orders from his father, Brigadier Kishen Kumar Kaul.

Public applause

It took him two months to recover and return to Babina. Soon after, during their daughters’ winter break, the family went for a two-week vacation to his parents’ place. On the train, a stranger who had read his story in Society magazine asked for his autograph, which he gave. More interestingly a ticket checker, who had refused to give Kaul and family seats six months earlier, recognised him and was ashamed.

“He vowed never ever to refuse a seat to a man in uniform however jam-packed his coach may be. I realised that war and its after effects leave a profound impression on ordinary humans, both in and out of uniform.”

The colonel’s autobiography reads like an exceptional war film script. He writes with the same honesty and forthrightness that marked his career as a soldier. His integrity earned him the ire of his superiors and led to much harassment during service. That hasn’t changed much since his retirement. Both the army and the government have treated men like him with rank callousness.

The meeting

Anil Kaul met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia on April 2, 1988, at the tea that followed the presentation of gallantry awards at Rashtrapati Bhavan. President R. Venkataraman pinned the Vir Chakra on his chest. It filled the young officer with pride. Rajiv asked him, “What do you feel about our going to Sri Lanka?”

Kaul looked to his chief General Sunderji for help, but none came. He answered as best as he could, “Sir, I have no feelings. I just went where I was ordered to go.”

Not convinced, the PM persisted, “I am sure you must have felt something.”

No longer able to contain himself, Kaul said, “Sir, I have no feelings, but I have an opinion and that is our going to Sri Lanka as I saw it was a complete Balls-up.” He had no hesitation telling Rajiv Gandhi that “there were no maps, no radio sets, no intelligence briefings worth the name, rifles that were outgunned by the LTTE, and to cap it all no evacuation of the wounded, not even a first field dressing for immediate use.”

Rajiv suddenly said, “We have all got to move for the customary group photograph. After that I would like to talk to you in detail.”

The photographs taken, Kaul moved towards the PM to resume the discussion but security personnel and advisers whisked Rajiv Gandhi away.

Sunderji, then Army Chief, remarked, “You don’t mince your words, do you?”

At first, the accolades kept coming. But after the celebrations in Babina, Kaul was ushered into the office of the CO, who happened to be his brother-in-law, at midnight.

That worthy lectured Kaul on how he should have conducted himself during operations and later.

Kaul suggests, “This had possibly been a direct fallout of his own guilt in deserting me at a crucial juncture, his own shortcomings, and finally his way of telling me that he would get back at me by some devious means or other.”

Old stamping ground

He was posted to the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, as Squadron Commander and Instructor class “B”. By and large he had a good time. His students respected him.

A keen golfer before his injuries, he got back to it, encouraged by Rekha. At first it was difficult, but through sheer persistence he learnt to drive with one hand and putt as well. Over the years, he has won tournament awards for putting.

He still feels a glow of satisfaction about those years. He returned to swimming and squash as well. The marker entered Kaul’s name in an open squash tournament. Playing against a fourth term cadet, 20 years his junior, Kaul, to everybody’s surprise including his own, won 9-0, 9-0. In the next round playing fifth term cadet Akshay Joshi, reigning junior national champion, he lost fighting 9-7, 9-4.

“Not bad for someone with one eye,” he quipped in his autobiography.

As an instructor he was particularly happy when Vikram, a cadet certain to fail because of problems with his father, managed to pass. Six months later he finished his naval basic specialisation course at the top and won the Sword Of Honour.

“He had driven from Bombay to Poona to break the news to me ahead of his father. I succeeded in not only saving a career but turning around an entire point of view in a very positive manner.” There were others like Gaurav Khanna, Vikrant Lakhanpal and Rajinder Sial, who also had problems but turned around because of Kaul’s guidance and became good, responsible officers in the army, navy and air force.

He also produced plays and cultural shows. It was the right place to be rejuvenated and start life afresh. Sports, Sailing –on the Khadakvasla lake – squash and golf restored his self-confidence.

But he did have a close call. His left hand suddenly swelled to almost twice its size. It needed the intervention of a surgeon at the reconstructive surgery department at the Armed Forces Medical College and Hospital, Pune, who drained the pus and dressed the wound. After a few injections, and a week in hospital, he recovered.

“I came to know for the first time that gunshot wounds, particularly where gangrene has set in, are prone to infection, due to any reason and at any time spanning years, if one is not careful.”

A straightforward man, Kaul has always been troubled by the bureaucracy. When it was something simple like gallantry benefits given by States in the Indian Union, he was diddled out of them, on the grounds that being an army “nomad” he didn’t technically belong to any state!

Instead of helping him, Defence Minister K C Pant said, “This is how our country is and I can do very little about it as it is the prerogative of the state.”

Family tradition

As part of a military dynasty, it is natural that Kaul should have distinguished forbears. Apart from his father, the Brigadier, there was his uncle, Lt General B M Kaul, PVSM, a much maligned man.

Following the 1962 debacle against China, Lt Gen Kaul was accused of abandoning his post in the face of a superior enemy; the truth was he was lying under an oxygen tent in Delhi fighting for his life. Having contracted pulmonary edema, he was forced to come out of NEFA (North East Frontier Agency, as it was called then) during the war. The Chinese army was better equipped militarily, much better fed, and had planned the attack meticulously.

Anil Kaul doesn’t have any direct recollection of those times as “I was all of 11 and in the seventh class. However being then the only son among four siblings’ children I was very close to my uncle.

“When I had joined the NDA, passed out and on my way to the IMA, whenever in Delhi, a visit to the “General” was obligatory.

“He always addressed me as “Captain”. On numerous occasions he mentioned that he was let down by his total faith in Pandit Nehru, and V K Krishna Menon, as also the fact that no one gave him a fair hearing. The only worthwhile inquiry into the episode, the Henderson-Brookes Report, is still under wraps more than 50 years on.”

Kaul’s father-in-law Lt Col J L Atal was also a third generation soldier. Kaul’s pride in his dynastic profession is justified. That was his only aim after he left school. Did he have much choice anyway, with distinguished soldiers from either side of his family, and his in-laws, wherever he looked!

A student of Arts at Modern School, New Delhi, he was a good student though he had trouble with Mathematics. It bothered him even at the NDA. He loved his years as a boarder at Modern School where he took a keen interest in dramatics under the guidance of Om Shiv Puri, a distinguished stage actor and his equally talented wife Sudha. Together they did the breakthrough production in Hindi of Mohan Rakesh’s Adhe Adhure.

Nearly a movie star
At the NDA Kaul was introduced by deputy commandant Col HKK Shukla to KK Shukla, who worked for the famous Hindi film producer Nasir Hussain from Mumbai.

Shukla saw enough potential to offer Kaul a five-year contract and the money he would have to pay the government if he left training right then. Though flattered, he wrote to his father about the offer and got an earful.

The final stage shows were at the fag end of the term. The grand finale was staged a night before the scheduled mathematics terminal examination. There was no getting away from math!

Life at NDA was a pleasure despite a wholly unfair relegation. There was a party in his cabin organised by seniors. There was much smoking and drinking. Kaul didn’t take part but was caught throwing away the butts smoked by his seniors! Smoking was a grave offence at NDA and a cadet could be thrown out if caught, which he, mercifully, was not.

Tough on indiscipline

It was a shattering blow for a 19-year-old to be held back a term on ‘disciplinary’ grounds, all the more because there was no cause for such drastic action against an innocent cadet. Kaul lost a year in seniority and a year of service. He feels this miscarriage of justice marked him for life. He has been very tough with his subordinates both in the field and in peace time.

“I have gone strictly by the law book while trying offenders under the Army Act, summarily or by court martial, with however two exceptions. In the final judgment the benefit of doubt was with the accused. Secondly, I have never delivered a judgment that would harm the individual’s standing in any manner, where he or she stood to lose in terms of service, seniority, pay and allowances or even self-esteem or confidence.”

Reading such pronouncements one might get the impression of humourlessness, but that is not true. While at the Indian Military Academy for a year’s specialised training, Kaul says cadets were given names, including those from friendly Asian and African countries, who were called phirang. Among them was a shaved off Sardar from Singapore who took a month to convince his peers that he was indeed a phirang.

In the early part of his career his commanding officer Channi Bhullar asked if he had availed of his annual leave. When Kaul said no, he was told to go immediately on a “two- month leave.”

The young lieutenant Kaul reminisces: “On arrival at Jammu Tawi railway station, I rang my father and announced my arrival. I was asked why I had come on leave, when mind you, I had not met my parents for over a year. I replied quite bluntly that these were the CO’s orders and he could ask if he so desired.”

After a bumpy ride on an Army converted carrier he went to meet the Brigadier, who was in a meeting. Kaul was getting restive after several cups of coffee and leafing through all the magazines available with his father’s personal assistant when the door opened. The first thing the Brigadier asked his son, “When did you have a haircut last?”

Marital mission

He was summoned home with the same directness in May 1975, this time for entirely personal reasons. “Meet Colonel Atal and his daughter Rekha, also known as Chun-Chun, talk to each other and in three days decide if you are to be married or not,” the Brigadier barked at him.

Kaul fondly recalls: “Three days were long enough for the best decision I have made in my life but too short to really get to know each other.” After the speedy engagement he went off, “… to some vague, recently harvested fields, to carry on the manoeuvres I had left three days prior.”

He recalls her arrival at his side, as he lay in hospital recovering from Kokkuvil: “The hand that caressed me that day was the same hand which had been by my side these 12 years and it somehow gave me strength and courage to face the world as and when I could see it, I felt. She told me not to worry as she was by my side and would not leave it. She also confirmed that we were in Poona.”

Raw deal for injured

Talk to him about disabled soldiers and he gets worked up. He goes into details of War Injury Pension. The Fourth Pay Commission gave a higher rate on disability but with riders like the quantum of WIP according to the injury. Then, of course, whether the injury happened in combat or under natural conditions, which itself is a contradiction. When it came to implementation they offered 80 per cent of Rs 1,500 instead of Rs 4,200. A corrigendum was issued but not made public.
He says there are two words he despises when employed by the army to evade responsibility towards ex-soldiers and other ranks—and they are ‘Corrigendum’ and ‘Addendum’.

Apathy is the word that best describes army headquarters’ attitude towards disabled soldiers, he says.

“Unless you put a differently-abled person in charge it won’t be possible to understand the financial and psychological damage involved”, he adds. Army HQ has a branch that controls every case that may go against it, regardless of merit. It treats every complainant as a ‘truant’ soldier.

Kaul went to the Life Insurance Corporation to seek financial relief against his policy and they told him, “You have not lost your money earning capacity.” Army Group Insurance does not give money for war disability, only for death in war. Those days the AGI premium was Rs 25, now it is Rs 1,500 per month.

“The Government is liable to pay because it is my money. Some 60,000 army personnel—all ranks—retire every year. Where the hell does the money go? Instead of making fancy buildings for the AGIS why can they not release the money to retired soldiers who have served the country for so long?”

Like all large organisations the army too suffers from bureaucratic sclerosis and stupidity. It seems eerily similar to the way the IPKF was run, which Kaul describes with mordant wit.

Asked why the mission failed, he says, “When you do not have a single window commander for joint operations, the army, navy and IAF doing their own thing, when orders to move platoons and companies are dictated by the MO directorate in AHQ on decisions given by the High Commissioner in Colombo, you are waiting for a disaster to happen.”

Remote control

As for who was in actual charge, “The chain of command was as follows: JN Dixit (Advisor to PMO)–MOD–COAS (DMO)—HQ IPKF—Formation Commanders in Sri Lanka—Troops on ground. The screw-up was a mixed bag of Dhoti-Filewallah and Jhanda-Danda Wala. A nice dish served called mixed Indian Pulao Korma Fuzz or IPKF.” That’s certainly a new take on the old SNAFU.

Confidence was one quality he needed all the time, and by God’s grace he did have it. When for instance there was almost a polarisation of feelings within the army after Operation Blue Star in 1984. The Army was sent in to flush out the Sikh militants holed up in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. In the process the Golden dome of the Sikh temple was destroyed (and subsequently re-built).

After completing a 44-week staff course at Wellington, Udhagmandalam (Ooty), Kaul was posted as Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quarter Master General of an infantry brigade.

“The charter of duties involved the coordination and collation of all staff work associated with administration of the Brigade, a force of about 5,000 men. It ranged from manpower to rations and appraisal with a thousand subjects like discipline and construction thrown in for good measure.”

The two-year tenure was eventful. In the first year cases linked with Operation Blue Star were tried. There were 200 deserters in custody. When proceedings ended, a speeding staff car of the General Officer Commanding the UP Area hit Kaul’s younger daughter Aradhana. The doctors’ diagnosis was fracture and dislocation of number 1 and 2 vertebra, “commonly known as the hangman’s bone.” She was saved by a brilliant neurosurgeon, the late Colonel (later Brigadier) T K Roy.

Operation cover-up

“I realised that as a General Officer was involved in the accident all manner of subterfuge was adopted to blame the child, who was just three years old, for the accident, together with a supposedly signed statement by me in person to local police in an FIR (First Information Report) with my forged signature to boot. The driver was not blamed by the local court of Inquiry, yet it recommended that I approach the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (MACT) for relief.”

“The case was made to be dismissed by default as even my lawyer was bought over and the judge gave an ex-parte decision against me. The then army commander Lt General A K Gautama sanctioned Rs 15,000 as mandatory compensation some ten years later, that too with a rider that it should not be quoted as a precedent.

“My daughter still lives with the disability while those who caused it have not even had the courtesy to ever check back (on) her state of well-being.”

Aradhana, now is a wife and mother. She is a talented story board artist and has drawn war comics for her own company, Sabre Comics. Her drawing and colouring conveys the mood of a given story succinctly.

Her story about the gallantry of sailors on board INS Khukri during the 1971 war with Pakistan is fluidly narrated with a respect for facts.
The navy frigate was torpedoed by Pakistan submarine PNS Hangor off the Kathiawar coast. Captain M N Mulla went down with the ship, as did his second-in-command Lt Cmdr J K Suri. Mulla was awarded the Mahavir Chakra and Suri, the Vir Chakra. The comic book is titled “Captain Courageous”.

Aradhana’s approach to her subject reveals the true horrors of warfare. This is so because she is a child of the Services and has known the tragedies of war, most vividly through the harrowing experiences of her own father.

Missing from action


The romantic view that the young have of the heroic deeds of the armed forces, particularly the Army, is both belied and confirmed by Anil Kaul’s experience. He has had to face the bizarrely comic as well as stark tragedy. During the IPKF campaign two officers from his regiment ducked out; one because he was preparing for the 440-yard dash for the Services Athletics Championship. The other was off to climb a mountain.

The Commanding Officer did not think it necessary to order the shirkers to proceed to Sri Lanka where their presence was more urgently required.

Years later in 1996 Kaul, posted in Jammu and Kashmir, and in charge of containing and thwarting militant activity, was bemused to learn that a young officer was unable to come out with the patrol in foul weather as he was studying for an examination that would ensure promotion and a safe posting!

In contrast, here was a veteran who had earned the right to ease being moved to another dangerous region. “The move to a counter-insurgency deployment,” he says, “came soon after I had moved my regiment from Babina to Pathankot.” It was a world removed from his old billet.

A new frontline

“There was a total change in the environment, operational role and the terrain as against what we had been used to while operating as a part of a desert-oriented force.” He is deadpan about the change in role as well as profile.

“We were ordered to move as an accretional force along the line of communication between Jammu and Srinagar without any preparation or reoriented training including operating as an infantry unit as against a tank regiment and with brand new weapons in the form of AK-47 assault rifles as against the standard issue 7.62mm SLR and 9mm pistols. Also the drivers had to get used to driving in the hills as against the sand dunes of the Thar desert.”

Even so, there were deficiencies that couldn’t be ignored. “To make up shortages of manpower and specialist weapons not authorised to a tank regiment all sorts of attachments, including a Territorial Army company and an air defence battery, were placed under my command,” he says.

“After a series of briefings at various HQ en route we reached our appointed location astride NH 1A at a remote village called Nachlana.” That was where they finally understood what they were to do.

“My unit was deployed over an area of approximately 100 sq km in three company posts comprising about 100 personnel of all ranks, each post commanded by an officer of the rank of Major. In addition, we were responsible for a daily task of road opening and securing the National Highway for a distance of roughly 50 km. We were also to maintain cordial civil-military relations, avoid human rights abuses and fraternise with the local population. In addition we were detailed to oversee smooth conduct of the assembly elections in August-September ’96 as also the safe conduct of the Amarnath yatra in our area of responsibility.” Taken altogether, it was a job that allowed minimum breathing space. He was stoic about it.

“As a battle-tested, war-decorated, 80 per cent disabled yet retained in service commanding officer and army officer, I took the bit in my teeth and carried out all tasks allotted with the singular achievement of not losing a single soldier during our tenure, either to the militants or to the weather, both of whom, to put it mildly, were rather hostile.

“As a Kashmiri Pandit, on the other hand, a forced migrant in my own country with no one to bother about us, I was determined to be as ruthless as possible against anyone who stepped out of line.” The prose is understated, but provides a hint of what they managed to do.

“The tenure was eventful, considering that we brought to book a fair number of militants, incarcerated a few sympathisers, allowed peace to prevail, generally also gave shelter, food, medicines and good spirits to about 3,000 pilgrims and truck drivers when the weather cut off all communication for over seven days.”

Kaul personally coordinated the actions of a patrol and managed to find the whereabouts of an injured militant being treated by a local doctor hiding in a village in Doda. He asked for reinforcements that were deliberately delayed, thus enabling the quarry to escape.

Later he learnt that the person responsible was a former course-mate, who probably thought another medal was in the offing.
By now his old wounds had begun to catch up. His damaged hand gave him excruciating pain. Painkillers hardly brought relief. But the colonel has more than a hint of the Spartan about him. “The fact that my already damaged left arm was further affected due exposure to the extreme cold leading to a carpal tunnel syndrome was par for the course,” he says. A delay in changeover means it was a month before he could get proper medical treatment.

“I reported the matter to the brigade commander who, incidentally, never bothered to even ring me up, let alone visit my unit or me during this period. Not only did he not come, he had organised himself to be away on a course and from there on leave.” It does make one wonder how such people make it to commander in the first place.

The Brigadier was very keen to write Kaul’s confidential report for the period “though technically he was supposed to do it.” He tried to suggest that Kaul was a malingerer but backed off when the doctors informed him about the seriousness of his injury. Kaul is justifiably aggrieved.

Knife in the back
“The bitterness was that despite the excellent performance of my regiment against all odds and my own conduct, the Brigadier who wrote my report marked me low, without having come to visit me or my unit once in over six months. This report went against me in my promotion to the next rank.”

Anil Kaul’s family has served the nation for three generations. His father and grandfather served first in the Royal (British) Indian Army before independence and then the Indian Army after 1947. His wife’s family has a similar lineage. The Kauls and the Atals are Kashmiri Pandits; and as Brahmins, an exception to the rule. Pandits usually enter professions such as teaching, medicine, law, or the various government services. Of all the members of his family, his professional career has been the toughest.

His life has been a roller-coaster ride. He is proud to have been a soldier but is extremely critical of the way the army and the government have treated him and others in similar predicament.

He is proud of the Vir Chakra. “The award is recognition of what I did and is very dear to me. But more than that, it has brought honour to my unit, the men I commanded and to my family.” So does he think now that it was all in vain?
His answer is clear. “My sacrifice was not in vain, but sadly the army comes from the same stock as civil society, where forgetfulness and no care for sacrifice is a by-line of our attitude in life. I have always tried and will keep on trying to correct this anomaly.”

The cavalier treatment that he and other disabled people continue to receive is part of something larger, he feels. “Throughout history we as Indians have derided disability and made fun of it. Today despite a lot of eyewash on the subject, deliberate offensiveness towards the disabled is common.


Dispelling the myths


“The problem with the armed forces is that, first, they do not want disabled soldiers in their ranks as it reduces the numbers required to feed the very large mouth that gobbles up cannon fodder, and secondly they have never placed a disabled person in charge of the department that deals with disability. Unless you are disabled you do not understand what it means.”
Better Dead Than Disabled is a harsh, truthful document that questions the myth and romance associated with the army while saluting those who have served the country to their last breath.

Kaul in retirement is a jolly fellow; he loves his beer and enjoys a good meal and a good laugh. He is worried about his wife’s health, but draws pleasure from his daughters and grandchildren. He follows the news keenly.

He was a lad when commissioned into 65 Armoured Regiment in 1972 after passing out of the Indian Military Academy on December 24 that year. Somewhere deep inside that idealistic youngster continues to live in him.
 

Bornubus

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capture of jaffna

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A bloodied accord
After 16 days of bloody battle, the Indians finally captured Jaffna, the stronghold of the Tigers. But the losses have been heavy and could mount further. A report on the conflict and its implications plus exclusive eyewitness account and action pictures from Jaffna.

Dilip Bobb

November 15, 1987 | UPDATED 16:14 IST
A +A -


The western press corps currently congregated in Colombo have a name for it - they call it the Five O'clock Follies, the same sobriquet given to the regular press briefings by the US Army in Saigon during the Vietnam war.

The comparison may be odious, but the daily 5 p.m. briefings at the new Indian High Commission chancery in Colombo on the Indian Army's operations in Jaffna contained some chilling parallels. The disputed body counts, the territorial tug of war, an invisible enemy, and above all, the growing realisation that it is a war where victory and defeat can mean much the same.

Across the lushly-carpeted, lagoon-laced countryside of the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, the thunder of gunfire was slowly stilled last week. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), after 16 days of battle in unfamiliar terrain, finally wrested control of the Tigers' lair, the labyrinth of narrow, winding lanes and concealed bunkers that make up Jaffna town, the heavily-fortified and thickly-populated stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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But Operation Pawan, as the IPKF's activities in Sri Lanka is code-named, is a chapter of Indian military history that will contain none of the honour and glory of a victorious campaign. Notwithstanding the fact that the IPKF fought against daunting odds and under severe constraints, the "liberation" of Jaffna last week was essentially what one IPKF officer described as "a dirty little war, and that too by proxy".

For two long weeks, the 20,000-strong IPKF, taken from the Indian Army's 4th, 36th and 54th Divisions, slowly and steadily inched its way across the heavily-mined and booby-trapped areas around Jaffna. Through a withering fire-storm, their five-pronged operational axes then linked up, enabling them to corner the 2,500-odd Tigers holed out in their Jaffna redoubt, many of them the same guerrillas that the Indian Army had obligingly trained in Tamil Nadu to combat the Sri Lankan security forces.

The irony has stretched to tragic dimensions. Despite its vastly superior numbers (India Today sources put it at as much as 30,000 apart from the paramilitary contingent), unlimited fire-power and acknowledged professionalism, the IPKF has suffered unexpectedly heavy losses in the fortnight of fierce fighting. Officially, at the end of the 16-day siege of Jaffna, the IPKF admits to 214 dead, including 15 officers, two of them colonels.

Another 36 soldiers are missing, captured and presumably killed by the Liberation Tigers, while over 700 IPKF personnel have been wounded in the action. Unofficially, however, army sources admit that the death toll in the first Indian Army operation that has taken place on foreign soil since 1975, could be closer to 400.

In military terms, those are somewhat inglorious statistics, but then, it was also an inglorious war. Less than three months earlier, the Indian Government sent in, at the request of Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene and under the stated terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan accord, a 6,000-strong army contingent that was, paradoxically, called the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

The main brief was to provide protection to the Tamil-dominated population of Sri Lanka's northern province. But only two months later, the IPKF suddenly found itself locked in incongruous combat with the LTTE, which is militarily the most powerful of the Tamil militant groups and which regards itself the self-appointed protector of the local Tamil population.



IPKF soldiers in Jaffna bunker
That tragic turnaround put the IPKF in an unenviable military position - facing guerrilla fighters, many barely in their teens including young women, in a heavily built-up and densely populated urban area already fortified and extensively mined during the three-year-old battle between the militants and Sri Lankan security forces.


Admitted Lt-General Depinder Singh, general officer commanding, Southern Command and the overall force commander of the IPKF: "Urban guerrilla war is a comparatively new phenomenon as far as the Indian Army is concerned."

More important, the IPKF was hamstrung by their strict orders to avoid heavy civilian casualties and extensive damage to buildings. "Ours had to be a proportioned response. There was large-scale mining of the Jaffna area and almost every building was booby-trapped. The LTTE made extensive use of these buildings and used the civilian population as prophylactic protection. Our progress, therefore, was necessarily slow," says Major-General A.S. Kalkat, director of military operations, Southern Command.

The IPKF, moreover, appears to have miscalculated not only on the fierce resistance put up by the Tigers but the extent of their weaponry as well. Every road leading into Jaffna was pitted with powerful Claymore mines or huge drums filled with explosives buried under the ground.

The buildings were booby-trapped with highly sophisticated bombs that were capable of being detonated by remote or radio control from a distance of over a kilometre. In one such explosion that was set off under an army convoy, 29 IPKF personnel were blown up and an equal number were seriously wounded. The IPKF then requested for a regiment of T-72 tanks to counter the mines.

Apart from the mines, the highest number of IPKF casualties were from LTTE snipers located in buildings and even tree-tops, equipped with sophisticated, high-powered rifles with telescopic infra-red sights. At least five helicopters of the Indian Air Force were badly damaged by snipers when they were dropping troops in designated areas. Finally, the IPKF had to induct six armour-plated Mi-24 helicopter gunships since none of the Mi-8s or Chetaks could fly below 2,000 ft without the risk of being shot at.

The extent and range of the LTTE arsenal made a mockery of the Indian Government's much-publicised arms surrender by the militants in early August. Arms caches were scattered all over the Jaffna area, many wrapped in water-proof packaging and secreted in the myriad lagoons that dot the countryside.

The Tigers had a vast arsenal of Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, one of the most effective weapons in urban guerrilla warfare, Soviet-made RPG-7 anti-tank rockets, mortars firing 60 mm bombs and shoulder-fired rocket launchers.

"They were not very accurate in their marksmanship but they fought like tigers," admits Brigadier Kulwant Singh, deputy divisional commander, Southern Command and one of the key strategists in the battle for Jaffna.

The fiercest battles between the Indian Army and the Tigers were fought at Kopai North, Kokuvil and Kurruparai where the LTTE managed to stop the IPKF advance in its tracks. Says Havildar Raosaheb Gaekwad, 38, of the Maratha Regiment: "The people we were fighting were no more than kids. But they seemed to have unlimited ammunition. It was a constant barrage."

Over 100 paratroopers from the 1st Para who were dropped by helicopters on the night of October 11, in the open ground around the Jaffna University area were caught in a merciless cross-fire and suffered the worst casualties of the entire operation. Unofficial sources say over 30 soldiers were killed and 18 soldiers taken prisoner.

Sepoy Lok Ram, 38, of the 1st Para regiment was one of those wounded in the paradrop. Says he: "We thought everything was fine but when we were sliding out of the seventh helicopter, we suddenly came under heavy Are from all sides. It was an impossible situation as people would come out of the houses and fire at us and then disappear. There were gunmen on tree-tops, even on top of coconut trees. Since we were not using heavy weapons, it was impossible to advance. We were surrounded by an enemy we could not even see." The paratroopers were pinned down for 24 hours and were eventually rescued by Indian Army tanks which provided them cover to escape.

Major Anil Kaul, 40, of the armoured regiment, was the first officer to be wounded during the extensive deployment of tanks to rescue IPKF personnel who were cornered by the Tiger guerrillas. Says he: "The Tigers had a contradictory approach. Their movements, the way they took Are, showed professional training. But their tactics were not those of a professional army. We were not fighting a uniformed enemy equipped with the same kind of weapons."

Though part of their training includes urban combat, the Indian Army's strategic planning has never included the kind of urban guerrilla warfare that Jaffna entailed. Says Havildar Kuldeep Singh of the Sikh Light Infantry, who was badly wounded in the face during the action: "We were pinned down for 12 hours by snipers firing at us from all sides. Five men from our unit died. It was very difficult. We have not been trained for this kind of battle - and we were also ordered not to use any heavy weapons."



The other handicap is their lack of knowledge of the local terrain. Eighteen IPKF soldiers who have been taken prisoner by the Tigers were forced to surrender after the convoy they were in lost its way.


The last four trucks in the convoy got separated from the rest and were caught in a cross-fire and pinned down. Of the 24 soldiers travelling in the trucks, five were killed and two were seriously wounded. The remaining 18 were forced to surrender after they ran out of ammunition.

The IPKF's problems were compounded by the fact that it was impossible to distinguish between the Tigers and the Tamil civilians. One senior officer entered a Jaffna house as part of the house-to-house search operations and found it empty except for a young woman. The moment he turned his back to leave, she whipped out a Sten gun and shot him in the back.

Says Sepoy Govindan of the Madras Regiment: "It was impossible to say who was a Tiger and who was not. Everyone, male or female, above the age of 10, could be armed and dangerous. We saw little girls producing guns from under their frocks and shooting at us. How do you fight them?"

Very carefully, is the answer that most IPKF commanders reluctantly give. Says Brigadier Manjit Singh of the 41st Infantry Brigade: "They are good fighting men, who are also very highly motivated. And we were fighting with one hand tied behind our backs."

In their efforts to minimise damage to buildings and civilians, the IPKF's most powerful weapons were the 105 mm light field artillery, Carl Gustav rocket launchers and the 105 mm guns on their T-72 tanks. Admits Brigadier Kulwant Singh: "We were fighting under constraints that we are not used to."

The turning point in the battle for Jaffna came when the IPKF, under Colonel 'Tippy' Brar, broke out of the Old Dutch Fort area on October 20 after being cornered for over two days, to link up with the other advancing columns of the Indian force and effectively seal off the Nallur area where the Tigers were concentrated.

On October 26, Jaffna fell to the IPKF and the guns were silenced, but the war is far from over. To date, the IPKF claims to have killed over 700 Tigers but, as Major-General Kalkat admits: "We have no actual count since we were busy in advancing and not stopping anywhere to count bodies. All I can say is that their losses were much higher than ours."

But even if their estimates are approximate, the total Tiger strength in Jaffna was estimated at around 2,500, apart from the sympathisers and collaborators from among the local population. In fact, it has been established that many teenagers actually joined the LTTE while the battle was raging and India Today actually met a number of young women LTTE fighters bristling with lethal weaponry.

The IPKF claims to have taken around 80 Tigers prisoner, which means that at least 1,500 Tigers have managed to evade the IPKF noose and mingle with the locals or have escaped to other areas, LTTE chief Pirabhakaran and other key leaders like Dilip Yogi, Anton Balasingham and the Jaffna commander Mahattaya are believed to have slipped out of Jaffna to regroup in one their many hideouts in the Mannar, Batticaloa, and Vadamarachi areas.

The Indian Army's miscalculation of the Tigers strength and resistance has already had its first casualty in the form of Major-General Harkirat Singh, the man initially put in charge of Operation Pawan. Because of his inability to take over Jaffna quickly, as originally anticipated, Harkirat was made the scapegoat and replaced by Kalkat.

But having lost total faith in the Indian Government and engaged in combat with the IPKF, the Tigers are certain to carry on their guerrilla war using the hit-and-run tactics similar to the terrorists in Punjab. The only difference is that they will be facing the Indian Army who privately admit that they could be bogged down in northern and eastern Sri Lanka for at least another two years.

In fact, according to top level defence sources, the Indian Army is in the process of setting up a reserve Southern Command headquarters sector in northern Sri Lanka under Lt-General Khajuria, a former director of Military Intelligence, which obviously means they are prepared to stay around for some time.

Despite the fact that the Indian Army is now left with no southern reserve divisions and at least 30,000 Indian troops will be tied up in Sri Lanka for an indefinite period, that strategy is inevitable. Like the Sikh terrorists in Punjab, the Tigers know the terrain intimately and can mingle with the local population without detection. Whether out of fear or sympathy, they also have the support of the local population.

Also, despite the Indian Navy's blockade of the Palk Straits, a number of boats have managed to slip through the cordon and reach the Tamil Nadu coastline. That could also mean that boats carrying arms and ammunition can still get through to the Tigers.

In any event, the Tigers seem to have no shortage of ammunition at the moment. The LTTE's Jaffna commander and currently the number two man after Pirabhakaran, Mahattaya, told India Today last week: "We are short of weapons though we have plenty of ammunition. But the IPKF is fooling itself if it thinks it has cut off our supply lines."



Home-made mines and rockets captured from LTTE
There are also signs that the LTTE will link up with the outlawed Sinhalese extremist group, the JVP, which has been responsbile for a number of recent killings and bomb explosions in south Sri Lanka, including the one that almost killed President Jayewardene and key members of his cabinet last August.


Similarly, the powerful bomb that ripped through the office of the assistant high commissioner of India at the tourist resort of Kandy in southern Sri Lanka last week is one indication of the Tigers' capability to strike at Indian targets outside the northern and eastern provinces either on their own or in collaboration with the JVP.

The IPKF's immediate goal in the north is to isolate the LTTE leadership from the cadres or wipe them out in the belief that the less committed members will surrender under the terms of the amnesty they are being offered.

That, however, could be wishful thinking. None of the key leaders, specially Pirabhakaran, will allow themselves to be taken alive. If cornered, they will almost certainly swallow the cyanide capsules that is their trademark. Pirabhakaran as a martyr to the Eelam cause is as potent as Pirabakaran alive.

However, Mahattaya told India Today on October 27: "We will be willing to a cease-fire under three conditions. The Indian Army should cease-fire immediately. The IPKF should return to the camps where they were prior to October 10, and only then will we be willing to talk about surrender of arms."

However, those are conditions that the Indian Government will obviously not agree to. Nor is it clear whether Mahattaya is speaking for a section of the LTTE or even Pirabhakaran. In any event, the task before the Indian Government is to win over the local population in northern Sri Lanka.

The Indian Government is already flooding Jaffna with food and medicines. It will also undertake a crash programme to rebuild damaged houses, as well as set up projects to ensure employment for the local population.

Last week, in an attempt to bring about normalcy and get the economic wheels moving again, Indian doctors and government engineers were flown in to restore essential services like hospitals, electricity, water-supply and food distribution. This will be followed by all-out efforts to set up the ill-fated interim administration and raise a Tamil police force for the north.

But the success or failure of that mission will largely depend on the kind of damage there has been to civilian property and the number of civilian deaths during Operation Pawan. IPKF sources claim that civilian casualties were unavoidable considering the type of war they had to fight, but insist that the numbers are minimal.

However, many independent reports from Jaffna have spoken about large-scale civilian deaths but in the welter of propaganda and counter-propaganda being put out by the Indian Government and the Tigers, it is impossible to establish the truth.

Certainly, India Today was eyewitness to one incident when Mi-24 helicopter gunships bombed and strafed the town of Chavakacheri, 32 km east of Jaffna and 20 civilians were killed. The Indian Government first denied that helicopter gunships were being used in an offensive operational role.

Once it became clear that the eyewitness reports would appear in the Indian press, they finally admitted that the incident had taken place but still claim that it is the only one of its kind. They also claimed that only an "isolated building" where suspected Tigers were hiding had been shelled. India Today was witness to the fact that shells had landed in the main marketplace and the main bus-stand where large numbers of civilians had gathered.

The Tigers, in their propaganda war from Jaffna, claimed that over 200 civilians have been killed by the IPKF and numerous buildings, including the Jaffna Hospital, destroyed. The Catholic Church in Jaffna has put the number of civilian deaths at 100.

Some western journalists who entered Jaffna after the battle started, have returned with horror stories of IPKF troops going berserk after their comrades were killed and accused them of shooting innocent people and of raping Tamil women. The Tigers refer to the IPKF as the Innocent People Killing Force.



IPKF personnel occupy a Tiger bunker in the heart of Jaffna
Till the Indian Government started flying in journalists and photographers into Jaffna, the Tigers were clearly winning the propaganda war. The only way for journalists to enter Jaffna was with the LTTE.


It is difficult to establish whether the so-called victims of IPKF atrocities were tutored by the Tigers or were genuine. Jaffna Hospital, which the Tigers claimed was bombed by the IPKF, was free from any major damage when journalists were taken there last week.

Certainly, judging by the ferocity of the action, civilian deaths would have been impossible to avoid. But on the other hand, the Indian Army is not a rag-tag indisciplined outfit like the Sri Lankan security forces. It is a highly professional and disciplined force that has been compared to the best in the world.

Says Lt-General Depinder Singh: "I cannot believe that Indian troops will ever go berserk to the extent of raping or killing women as it is against our ethos and our culture. Further, as the heavy casualties to our officers and JCO's indicate, they led from the front and therefore the question of indiscipline just does not hold water."

Yet, there can be no denying that the local Tamil population currently views the IPKF with suspicion and even hatred, though they also see them as tools in a larger geo-political strategy. Says Dilip Yogi, one of the top LTTE leaders: "We do not blame Rajiv but his advisers who are misleading him on the situation. We do not blame the Indian soldiers, they are only carrying out orders. But we will never surrender. We can keep fighting for another 10 or 20 years. For every Tiger killed, another is born."

Clearly, the IPKF has an unenviable task ahead and in private, senior army officers are already making comparisons with Vietnam and Afghanistan. But that is more the fault of South Block than the soldiers who are merely carrying out the orders of their political bosses.

The Indian Government's main bungle was in not disarming the militants when they had the chance immediately after the signing of the accord, IPKF officers say they were instructed to turn a blind eye to the arms that the militants had cached away or were even openly flaunting. Obviously, New Delhi had been over-confident of handling "the boys".

New Delhi's next and most serious blunder was in their attempts to cut the LTTE down to size and prop up the other rival militant groups in the classic political strategy of divide and rule. "The idea was to reduce the dominance of the Tigers since the other groups were under our control and thus ensure that the interim administration and the provincial council had more people who would abide by Delhi's directives," says a senior intelligence source.

But that strategy backfired when the groups engaged in a bloody internecine battle which left hundreds dead and a larger number of civilians killed in massacres. That one aspect alone destroyed the image of the IPKF as a force that would ensure security for the Tamil population, and the Tigers played on that with considerable effectiveness.

Now, having taken Jaffna with such heavy cost - an estimated Rs 3 crore a day in terms of money, apart from the loss of lives - the politicians are once again back in the game. New Delhi's strategy is to fully disarm the militants, a near-impossible task, and win over the local population by ensuring that:

  • There is no colonisation by the Sri Lankan Government in the eastern province;
  • Tamil refugees in India are returned to Sri Lanka as early as possible;
  • The devolution package envisaged in the accord is fully implemented;
  • The merger of the northern and eastern provinces under one administrative unit takes place;
  • A Tamil police force is set up as quickly as possible; and
  • Tamils are permitted to enrol in the Sri Lankan Army.
Says an Indian High Commission source: "We have extracted all these assurances from the highest levels of the Sri Lankan Government. If Colombo reneges on any of the conditions, they are in worse trouble than before. With 20,000 Indian troops sitting in the country, it will lead to another Cyprus-type division. We are confident that Jayewardene will not allow that to happen."

Fortunately for New Delhi, the reaction in Tamil Nadu to the IPKF offensive against the Tigers has been muted. In a recent poll in the state, 67 per cent of those interviewed said that Rajiv had not let down the Tamils.

A majority also believed that the LTTE was responsible for starting the trouble and that the IPKF should stay on in Sri Lanka. The Karunanidhi-led opposition DMK has, however, launched a massive protest campaign against the IPKF offensive that could snowball in coming days.

Says party President M. Karunanidhi: "We will continue our agitation till the Indian Army stops its actions in Jaffna."Adds party General Secretary K. Veeramani: "The Mossad stood to gain by their actions in Sri Lanka. The Indian Government, on the other hand, is spending Rs 3 crore every day of the taxpayer's money for their operations."



Distributing medicines to refugees at Jaffna Hospital
But the fact that the major offensive against the Tigers is over could blunt the thrust of the anti-IPKF movement, unless, of course, there are confirmed reports of large-scale civilian killings by the IPKF.


In any case, if Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, currently undergoing medical treatment in distant Baltimore, puts his weight behind the Indian Government, public opinion in Tamil Nadu will remain subdued. Rajiv in fact met MGR in New York last fortnight and is believed to have solicited his full support.

The danger is that with the LTTE having lost Jaffna - a major psychological defeat - New Delhi might be tempted to ignore them altogether in their future negotiations on the composition of the interim administration and the provincial councils.

That may prove another fatal mistake. The LTTE may have lost much sympathy for its intransigence and brutality, but the Tigers are still seen in northern Sri Lanka as the only people who gave their lives to protect the Tamils against the Sri Lankan security forces when other groups like the Tamil United Liberation Front were safely ensconced in Colombo or Tamil Nadu.

But the key issue is that with the most dominant Tamil group having taken on the Indian Army, the accord itself could be the biggest casualty. The Tigers have resumed their battle for Eelam and thus rejected the accord.

Jayewardene stated last fortnight that the elections to the provincial councils in the northern and eastern provinces will only take place "after the complete cessation of hostilities, the surrender of all arms and other weapons in the hands of the terrorists and the resettlement of all those who had been displaced owing to violence".

By even the most conservative estimates, to fulfil any of those conditions will take at least a year, at most, forever. Under the terms of the accord, elections to the provincial councils were to be held within three months, that is, October 29, or, "in any event before 31st December".

That is now clearly impossible and the actual elections could be stalled indefinitely. Further, Indian negotiators are now unlikely to even consider the LTTE in any future provincial council set-up, which will rob it of much of its credibility in the eyes of the Tamil people.

Already, in Colombo, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party leader Srimavo Bandaranaike has challenged the constitutionality of the Provincial Council Bill in the Supreme Court. The bill, in any case, requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament to become part of the Constitution.

That step could now prove a major hurdle with the anti-accord JVP having started a terror campaign against ruling party MPs, having already killed three and, in other cases, members of their families. Under that kind of threat, their support for the bill is in serious question.

However, Jayewardene, by staying away from the Vancouver Commonwealth meeting, has demonstrated that he means to stick by the accord and use all his considerable political guile to keep his party and cabinet in line.

For him, considering the widespread opposition to the accord by the majority Sinhalese, the accord was as much of a gamble as it was for Rajiv. "The average Sinhalese may be gloating over the fact that we are doing their dirty work for them, but the fact is that Jayewardene is determined to ensure the accord works, however long it takes to implement," says an Indian High Commision source in Colombo.

But so far, none of the initial clauses of the accord - the lifting of the emergency conditions in the north and east, the provincial council elections and the interim administration, disarming the militants - has been implemented.

If the Tigers continue to hold out against the IPKF, which is more than likely, the accord could collapse by default. The IPKF may have cleared one dangerous minefield but another, infinitely more dangerous one, lies ahead.

- with S.H. Venkatramani in Madras and M. Rehman in Pune
 

Gessler

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Excerpt from a larger article by Prasun K. Sengupta;

"Meanwhile, the IAF is close to deciding on the type of air-mobile rapid intervention/light strike vehicles that are required for the Garud special operations forces. About 80 such vehicles, armed with 12.7mm heavy machine-guns and lightweight ATGMs (like the laser-guided LAHAT), are required for undertaking combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) operations inside hostile territory during wartime.

The IAF has shortlisted Polaris Defense MRZR-4 ultra-light ATV and Oshkosh Defense S-ATV, both of which can be carried underslung by either the Mi-17V-5 or the CH-47F Chinook. For CSAR operations, the IAF, depending on the mission profile, intends to use both the armed Mi-17V-5s and unarmed CH-47Fs, while the armed Rudra helicopter-gunships—64 of which are being procured by the IAF—will be acting as escorting pathfinders."

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.in/


Polaris MRZR-4


Oshkosh S-ATV
 

shooter007

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View attachment 9004 View attachment 9002 I would like to draw your attention towards the tees some guys wearing during malabar, it can be the answer of the question that marcos was there or not, there is a frogman logo on the tshirts and only marcos have right to wear tshirts with a frogman logo now you can say that they can be navy diver with those tees but in the second pic the guy with navy blue tee have a distinct sign of Diver badge means we had Marcos on those ship during those exercises and i dont think they were their to assist VBSS and Navy divers to play the game.. Hence proved Marcos were there and they were represented vulnerably in front of our strategic partners.
Yeah I agree with you. The one wearing T-shirts with frogman logo are not in naked eyes., Maybe because they themselves want to remain Undisclosed.
 

Rushil51

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Excerpt from a larger article by Prasun K. Sengupta;

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.in/
From the same article.

In another development, RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems has commenced deliveries of 8,356Spike-SR shoulder-fired ATGMs to the Indian Army’s SF (Para), Navy’s MARCOS and the IAF’s Garud SOF formations. Originally fitted with a tandem high-explosive anti-tank warhead to defeat armoured vehicles equipped with explosive reactive armour, the Spike-SR now comes with a new penetration blast-fragmentation warhead with a delay function. This has been designed for use in urban operations, with the high-explosive fragmentation warhead penetrating the bunker or structure before detonating with lethal blast effect. The standard Spike-SR had a maximum range of 1km, but this has since been increased to 1.5km to provide the operator with greater standoff capability. The Spike-SR weighs only 9.8kg, and the missile is fitted with an uncooled imaging infra-red seeker and auto-tracker, and thus operates in the fire-and-forget mode. Once fired, the launcher and its associated day sighting system are discarded.
 

Arjan Singh Shekhawat

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Can anyone enlighten me about 22 Special Group / Mavericks ? Is it part of SFF or independent ? Any notable members of SG group if anyone knows ?
 

Rahul Khanna

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Can anyone enlighten me about 22 Special Group / Mavericks ? Is it part of SFF or independent ? Any notable members of SG group if anyone knows ?

I think there is no real straight answers to this other than versions of the truth. SG has also gone by many names. Has been in and out of SFF. No clear Idea if SG (and / or SFF) is currently under Cabinet Secretariate, Home Ministry, Defense Ministry etc.

Best I can advise you do a bit of google and leave it at that.
 

Spindrift

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Can anyone enlighten me about 22 Special Group / Mavericks ? Is it part of SFF or independent ? Any notable members of SG group if anyone knows ?
The Special Frontier Force (SFF) was also know as Establishment 22 or E22. The Special Group (SG) is a unit that is a part of SFF, there is no group call 22 SG.

The SG basically act as the muscle for R&AW
 
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