Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)
High intensity encounters between the Security Forces (SF) and the sponsored terrorists from Pakistan continue in the Valley with a degree of regularity, not as frequent as in the past but worrisome nevertheless. It is not the numbers but the quality of standoffs and the casualties that the Army is taking which cause dismay in public perception and rightly so. On one hand the public is fed with information about the improving situation and the strength of the counter terror and counter infiltration grids in J&K, by none other than analysts like me. Then there are frequent reports of glitches at the tactical and sub tactical levels leading to avoidable casualties. I have also gone to the extent of certifying the J&K counter terrorism model as the ideal one with each force and entity knowing where its space exists, its own limitations and strengths and the degree of cooperation it needs to overcome these. During the Pathankot incident I was strongly advocating that Punjab will have to sooner than later adopt this model. I am still convinced about that because the J&K model is inherently strong, based on years of experimentation and experience of some very competent practitioners. So, how do I view these repeated casualties in operations during contacts in the Valley? More importantly, how should the public view this? If people with ground experience at tactical and operational levels cannot suitably convince public perception it is a failure of intellect and communication skills more than anything else; the public is not to be blamed. And, that unfortunately is the problem.
A year ago I wrote an article called the ‘Last Mile in J&K’; that needs a reiteration. ‘The Last Mile’ is simply a situation which is a symbolization of the last stages of conflict stabilization in the military domain; quite different from the political, ideological and social domains. The strength of terrorists is at the lowest ever, the LoC is well dominated to prevent easy calibration by the other side. High profile leadership is missing due to inability to infiltrate without the terrorists facing heavy attrition in the march to the hinterland. No one in the Army has the patience to sit it out and that is how an Army always is. Everyone is out to kill the last terrorist so that the ugly face of terrorists is eliminated. However, the lesser the terrorist presence and more that the Army tries the results will never be commensurate with statistics of the past. Take it from me; there will be casualties on the Army side higher in ratio than at the time when there were a larger number of terrorists.
In the Last Mile the attention of the Army will also be diverted by other issues. Human rights take bulk of the attention as do political and legal correctness and a host of other issues. Among many of these issues is something that commanders, staff and junior ranks never faced before; that is the issue of crowds and flash mobs descending on contact sites and attempting to divert SF attention or assist the terrorists to somehow get away. Hence, the greater urgency to finish operations at the earliest. This has been a phenomenon prevalent in South Kashmir in particular over the last two years or a little more. It instigates the SF and leads to responses where civilians are injured or die and that leads to fresh cycle of violence. Shupiyan and Pulwama districts have been the centers of this. It is to the credit of the CRPF that it has done its task of crowd control rather well. Given the number of times it does it and the nature of instigation there will be occasions when mistakes will be made leading to loss of lives. This can never be justified but nevertheless will remain a factor among the challenges of the Last Mile.
How does the Last Mile translate into nature of operations and how exactly should the recent encounter at Pampore be viewed? It is foolish to state that the Special Forces were inefficient in handling the encounter and that given a chance at Pathankot they would have bungled.
The Pampore encounter is one of its kind; in fact a very rare one. Having witnessed hundreds of these in the Valley, to me it would probably appear as one of the better planned actions by the terrorists. They first targeted the CRPF administrative convoy taking advantage of the weak road protection; inflicted casualties there. They then withdrew either by design or by default to one of the largest buildings in the Pampore built up area. Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) is a five floor building with many people inhabiting it in the late afternoon. The CRPF and 50 RR did well to quickly cordon the building. The CRPF was keen to attempt intervention and this is understandable because it had lost men in the ambush. Its early action forced evacuation and gave little time to the terrorists to attempt any profiling to take hostages or risk eliminating a few of the civilian inmates in the building.
The EDI building is not an easy one to assault to carry out an intervention operation. The CRPF was brave in attempting it but after suffering casualties decided to hand over to the Army’s Victor Force which looks after South Kashmir. The Army has a couple of Special Forces teams dedicated to the two RR Force HQ. Given the circumstances, the nature of objective and the fact that it would be a matter of time before flash mobs moved in to upset the Army and CRPF’s equilibrium the Army decided to use the Special Forces teams to carry out intervention operations. I can say with complete assurance that if I was in the position of Major Gen ArvindDatta (GOC Victor Force) my decision would have been the same. I write with the experience of also having been the Colonel General Staff of Victor Force during the heyday of militancy. The Special Forces teams did a professional job of it. Two officer casualties that they suffered, along with a L/Nk, is drawing the ire of many and forcing comparison with Pathankot where the NSG also suffered a fatal officer casualty; to add to this is the death of some Commanding Officers in the last one year. All this has resulted in allegations of lack of professionalism. This is the Last Mile effect playing out on perception. I know it is a clichéd argument but it is worth repeating that the Indian Army’s officer cadre leads from the front, even beyond the professional needs. Not many may know that when Special Forces teams operate in such operations they are officer intensive. A squad may have buddy pairs of officers and JCOs or even two officers. A troop may have as many as five officers for a specific operation where the entire unit is not involved. This is the way Special Forces function in counter terror operations where small teams with high efficiency are formed for specific tasks.
Coming to the operation itself, there have been many allegations that intervention was unnecessary and that the building should have been brought down using explosives. In the mind’s eye of all those making these allegations, including veterans, there is this usual picture of a typical Kashmiri house made of brick and cement and perhaps even mud, along with an attached cowshed. This wasn’t the case here. To wire up and lay the explosives for bringing down the cement and concrete five floor building would have taken fairly long. In the bargain the flash mobs would have created a major problem. These are the issues impinging on minds of senior officers and their advisers and decisions have then to be taken. The factors are hardly evident to those who may never have had the chance of going through such loops of decision making under stress.
In the final word, let me state clearly that fatal casualties are most regrettable but they will take place in such operations where Indian Army officers will always lead from the front. That is their ethos; it is a part of their DNA and they are proud of it. Citizens of India must empathize with the travails that their warriors undergo in keeping them safe and express concern about casualties just as they have done in this instance. However, they must also be aware that in the peculiar security situation of the Last Mile there will be occasions when the ‘last post’ will have to be played quite often. Those who have the honor and privilege of donning the Indian Army’s uniform and embellishments are fully aware of it. It is a measure of their patriotism, their energy and their professionalism that they never flinch from their duties to the Nation.
(The writer is a former GOC of the Chinar Corps and now a part of two major Delhi think tanks, Vivekanand International Foundation and Delhi Policy Group)
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