On Nov 29, 2016 the enemy struck deep at Nagrota in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir. The target was the 16 Corps Headquarter. This formation is responsible for defending the Line of Control stretching all the way from Akhnoor right upto Poonch, covering a frontage of approximately 250 km.
The attacking troops were none other than the ‘good terrorists’. They are nurtured by Pakistani Army as strategic assets for use against India. All in consonance with their national aim and objective of bleeding India by a ‘thousand cuts’.
A cheap and an easy option for Pakistan, the dynamics of which seemed to have changed post the night of Sep 28-29, 2016. A ‘one night stand’ that had dispelled the myths, while rendering the Indian conspiracy of silence obsolete.
This surgical strike left Pakistani establishment shocked and in utter disbelief. What the thousand cuts could not do for Pakistan to India in decades, this surgical strike did it for India, in just over one night. The ghost of Indian army was staring in their eyes once again, decades after the unforgotten humiliating defeat of Pakistan during the 1971 War.
For Raheel Sharif, this was the worst that could have happened, just two months prior to his superannuation, a surgical strike. Time was short and wound too deep. A man who had meticulously build his image as the greatest of the generals through a well orchestrated propaganda by Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR), now stood exposed and naked.
The Pakistani predicament was well understood. Their army out rightly denied any surgical strike to have taken place and that suited India. Days later the press reports appeared quoting people living across the Line of Control who provided graphical details of these strikes. And how the Pakistani Army worked overtime in carrying their dead in trucks for secret burial.
Desperation on part of Pakistanis was apparent. Since Sep 28-29 they had violated the ceasefire over 300 times, killed 18 of our soldiers and beheaded two in cross LoC raids. All this was not without any cost to the Pakistanis. The enemy suffered heavy casualties in retribution that followed. Indian army had killed over 40 of their soldiers by Nov 29 during this period. Pakistan army realised yet again that it was of no match to the Indian might, conventionally.
On Nov 07, Hafeez Saeed threatened India while addressing a rally at Mirpur in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. He said, “Modi had done what he had to. Now it is the turn of Mujahideen to carry out a surgical strike”.
Then on Nov 24, the pain out of the deep wound inflicted by surgical strike could not be kept suppressed. Albeit in denial, Raheel Sharif on his farewell tour said that India had staged a “drama” of surgical strikes. “If India conducts a surgical strike we will give such a lesson that will be taught in Indian army courses”.
And that lesson to be, was to unfold at Nagrota on the day of his handing over the command baton to his successor, Gen QJ Bajwa on Nov 29, 2016.
The plan was highly ambitious. The aim was to strike the headquarter of one of the world’s largest field formation, the 16 Corps. The timings were to synchronise with the handing over of baton of command at a ceremony to be held at Army Hockey Stadium, close to the General Headquarter.
What a fantastic spectacle this would have generated. On one side of the divide, the televisions would have beamed images the world over of the burning building of 16 Corps Headquarter. The terrorists holding a few senior Indian Army officers as hostage would have added injury to insult.
And on the other side, the victorious general would have been seen handing over the baton, at an impressive ceremony to the new army chief.
Revenge taken, the history would remember him in high stead, Raheel had probably dreamt it that way. In turn India would be have been forced to respond, thus bringing up the issue of high volatility in the region due to unresolved Kashmir dispute. Portraying to the world that the real threat to regional stability and world peace was the Kashmir issue. Surely enough such an attack on 16 Corps Headquarter would have made a case study, taught in Indian army courses for years to come.
However this was never to become a reality too easily. Destined to a failed outcome, Pakistani dastardly designs lay exposed.
These Raheel’s terrorists, having failed to breech the multi layered security ring around the prestigious Corps Headquarter, they targeted an officers mess of an artillery unit on it’s perimeter. In the initial surprise terrorists did manage to inflict a few casualties on the Indian side.
The story will be incomplete without a mention of unparalleled bravery of the wives of two army officers staying in the family quarters complex. Their acts had helped in averting a major hostage crisis during the encounter on that fateful day.
Raheel Sharif’s audacious plan had failed miserably. He will now have to carry the burden of surgical strike for the rest of his life right up to his grave. Unfortunately for him the honour was left un-redeemed. Nagrota attack instead, will now be recorded as a failed “jihadi surgical strike”.
His six terrorists were killed in two separate operations, one at Nagrota and the other at the international border near Samba.
Terrorists killed in Nagrota, were carrying global positioning systems, packaged food and medicine, other than assault rifles and explosives. Very typical of the groups that cross the Line of Control with the specific intent of staging suicide attacks within hours or days.
As per the Border Security Force (BSF) spokesperson, these terrorists had on them plastic handcuffs, suggesting they came intending to take hostages. They were carrying five, two-litre cans, each filled with trinitroglycerine, a highly-incendiary liquid explosive.
Both the group of these terrorists appear to have used tunnels to infiltrate. A fifth of its kind detected in the districts of Samba and Jammu since 2012.
All those politicians, intellectuals and strategists trying to apportion blame on surgical strike for the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan need to rethink, while keeping aside the politics part of it.
Surgical strikes were not the last and so is not Nagrota. It is an exercise in futility to imagine and work towards a rationalised relationship with a revisionist state harbouring the dreams of ‘Gazwa-e-Hind.
Nevertheless, as far as Indian Army is concerned, having lost seven precious lives is by no count a small loss. It will certainly be a huge burden for a professional army like ours to justify. Quick review and revision is surely underway.
On the last day in his office on Nov 30, Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen DS Hooda said, “he didn’t see easy solution to end the Kashmir conflict, calling it a “long war” that would require a “long term approach”. The situation well summarised by the outgoing General.
Ergo, Indian army will have to continuously keep the Pakistani army harassed. In this long war, the pressure on line of control by relentlessly using the long range heavy calibre weapons at own free will, keeping the initiative with self, will be a strategic necessity. Essentially to Increase the economic and human cost manifolds the other side that will keep Pakistan army in a perpetual quandary, our military commanders will have to ensure No-Repeat of Uri and Nagrota simultaneously.