by Shiv Aroor
An hour later, the squad taking the higher path along the ridge communicated to the trail squad below saying they had spotted something suspicious in the shadow of a huge 30-foot boulder. It was a grey pheran, the traditional woolly, robe-like garment worn in the state. The squad leader reported that he was about to fling a pair of grenades down at the boulder. He was asked to wait—because by this time, L. Nk Goswami had walked far ahead on the trail and reached the cave all alone.
A fierce firefight immediately erupted. L. Nk Goswami fired with his TAR-21 rifle, taking cover behind a low boulder in a small open area outside the cave’s mouth. When the firing slowed, L. Nk Goswami jogged back up the trail to the rest of his squad, briefing them on what had just happened. Maj. Kumar remembers L. Nk Goswami’s face.
‘I had never seen him calmer. He had just come back to us after a few minutes of heavy firing at close range with 4 militants. But he wasn’t even excited. All he said was “Sir, bande dikh gaye. Aur ek ko lagi hai. (Sir, I have seen them. And one of them has been hit.)”’
The Major immediately cordoned off the area surrounding the cave, a 50x30-metre piece of land strewn with high boulders, creating an insidious maze. Twelve armed warriors stood waiting, their weapons trained directly at the mouth of the cave. The militants had been cornered.
‘Storming the cave wasn’t an option without incurring casualties,’ remembers Maj. Kumar. ‘We had rations and water. We had ammunition too. So we decided to wait the night and draw them out.’
L. Nk Goswami sat on the cave’s right at a distance of 15 metres. If the terrorists emerged, they would be cut down by a C-shaped formation of soldiers. Night fell heavily on the tired dozen. There would be no rest, sitting as they were, flexed and primed for action through an uncomfortable, chilly night that brought waves of the same dew that had caught L. Nk Goswami’s attention and led the men to their target earlier that day. In turns, they gratefully ate packed dinner of puri and pickle.
To send the holed-up terrorists a clear message that there was no way out, a soldier was ordered to fire 2 rocket-propelled grenades into the clearing outside the cave at night. In the concussive blast, 2 terrorists emerged from the cave in panic, trying to make a desperate run for it. The moment they emerged into the open area, 2 shots were heard. L. Nk Goswami, his TAR-21 in his favourite single-shot mode, fired 2 quick rounds, abruptly ending the escape bid.
‘In such a situation, men usually fire their weapon in bursts. They want to be sure. Mohan fired just 2 shots,’ recalls Maj. Kumar, who had been sitting just a few feet away from L. Nk Goswami when he fired. ‘Just 2 rounds. He was that confident of his skill.’
After all the firing, a deathly quiet descended on the ridge that night. The Para-SF squads were running low on support ammunition too, so they decided to wait till morning to see if the remaining 2 terrorists could be drawn out. It would be a long, sleepless wait.
Till noon the next day, 27 August, there hadn’t been another sound. Four men, including L. Nk Goswami and Maj. Kumar, began a hectic search operation in the area around the cave. The mandatory task was to ensure that the terrorists hadn’t, by some slim chance, emerged in the darkness and relocated to a different position.
With L. Nk Goswami once again as scout leader out in front, the 4 men crept between the boulders, their weapons cocked and ready. The 3 men heard a series of shots from L. Nk Goswami’s rifle up ahead as a fresh firefight erupted. Creeping up virtually silently around a boulder, L. Nk Goswami had spotted the leg of one of the hiding terrorists behind another boulder. He had immediately aimed and fired at the leg, sparking a volley of return fire from a crevasse behind the boulder. L. Nk Goswami returned to the 3 others, and all 4 took position, their weapons now aimed directly up the path towards the boulder.
Moments later, screaming slogans in a hoarse shriek, the injured terrorist hobbled out into the clearing, firing his weapon, only to be cut down instantly by the 4 waiting warriors.
Only 1 terrorist now remained alive. And the squad knew he was fully cornered, deep inside a cave behind the boulder. Maj. Kumar remembers wanting to empty the last of his squad’s rocket-propelled grenades into the cave, sealing the last terrorist’s fate where he hid.
‘We wanted to finish up and de-induct. We were out of rations too,’ he recalls. But L. Nk Goswami broke the bristling silence. Stepping towards the cave he cupped his hands around his mouth and made a loud call.
‘Bhaijaan, abhi bhi mauka hai. Aap surrender kar do. Baahar nikal jao. Kis liye marne ke liye aaye ho? (Brother, there is still a chance. Surrender and come out of the cave. Do you want to die here?)’ L. Nk Goswami was speaking firmly, but on that windswept mountain ridge, there was a gentleness in his voice as he called into the gaping maw of that mountain cave.
The terrorists had been trekking for 5 days through the harshest terrain Kashmir could offer. L. Nk Goswami knew that they would be at the end of their reserves, their energy and perhaps their sanity.
‘That was his presence of mind. He knew the terrorist would have no heart left for a fight. It was the perfect opportunity to capture him alive. That’s what Mohan did,’ remembers Maj. Kumar.
Many minutes later, the last terrorist finally hobbled out of the cave, his hands up. Emaciated, thirsty, with bloodshot eyes, he stood in front of the men, saying nothing. L. Nk Goswami turned towards Maj. Kumar. Both men knew they couldn’t kill him.
The men secured the terrorist, giving him the last of their food and water. He was Sajjad Ahmad, alias Abu Ubaidullah. A young man from Muzaffargarh in Pakistan, he had been recruited into the Lashkar-e-Taiba and trained like a commando to infiltrate India and inflict casualties in population centres. His testimony would go on to add to the already enormous dossier of evidence India had in Pakistan-sponsored terror. With their very valuable captive, the men summoned a helicopter to fly them back to base.
‘Mohan was far above the standards of even our battalion. Trust me, that’s saying a lot!’ says Maj. Kumar, who was later awarded the Shaurya Chakra for his leadership during the operation. ‘He was as intelligent and emotional as he was fit.’
The men would get a ‘bonus’ of just 3 days before they got their next call.
L. Nk Goswami’s next operation began on 2 September. Barely rested after the Lidder Panzal mission, L. Nk Goswami and his squad were put on scramble alert for the third time that week. It was a month that perfectly defined the relentless high-tempo operations that are the unique preserve of the Para-SF.
The intelligence this time was about 6 fresh infiltrators on their way across the remote Sutsalyar forests of Kupwara, one of Kashmir’s densest jungles. Visibility through the foliage was never more than 3 metres.
The squad planned a long-haul operation of 96 hours with 6 squads of 36 men who would lie in wait for the infiltrators. The men were on location by first light on 1 September. Splitting into 2 groups, the teams deployed on either side of a wide mountain stream flowing through the forest. While the men knew the terrorists would arrive, the intelligence they had was not specific on precisely which direction they would come from. That explained the larger number of Para commandos in what the regiment calls a ‘speculative ambush’. A bigger number had a greater tactical chance of knocking out the terrorists before they had an opportunity to act.
At 2030 hours, L. Nk Goswami’s squad detected the terrorists as they arrived in the area. The intelligence had proved to be very good. There were 4 of them, as the input had said. The squads, positioned in buddy pairs through the forest trail, had set down Claymore mines. Unlike landmines, Claymore mines are detonated on remote command and designed to have their explosive effect pointed in a certain direction. But the terrorists arrived from an entirely unexpected direction, giving L. Nk Goswami and the other troops barely a few minutes to readjust and reconfigure.
But first, as always, the infiltrators needed to be challenged by the Para commandos. It remains one of the most risky standard operating procedures, but SF units have no way around it
yet. Since such operations take place among Indian citizens and on Indian territory, protocol demands that every precaution be taken before hostile action. Challenging someone in such a situation instantly gives away your position, allowing the challenged party to take the first shot.
As the 4 figures were spotted in the darkness, it surprised nobody that L. Nk Goswami volunteered once again to step forward and challenge the intruders.
Taking cover behind foliage, L. Nk Goswami shouted into the shadows, demanding to know who the 4 men were. In the darkness of that forest in Kupwara, the response was instantaneous. The clatter of assault rifle fire immediately broke out.
In the first few minutes, 1 of the 4 terrorists was hit by a shot L. Nk Goswami fired, but not killed. The close fire exchange continued for several minutes. But then it began to drizzle, and the guns fell silent. The terrorists didn’t dare move in case they gave away their locations. And the hunting commandos waited, watching through night-vision devices that were virtually useless in such foliage and weather.
As they waited, shortly after midnight, the squads were caught off guard by a loud explosion in a tree above them. It took seconds for the soldiers to realize that the terrorists had fired from an under-barrel grenade launcher attached to their AK-47 rifles. Splinters from the exploding grenade rained down on 2 commandos positioned under the tree, tearing open wounds on the sides of their faces.
Positioned a few metres away in the darkness, L. Nk Goswami was watching. And he knew what he needed to do. He always did.
If there was one impulse stronger than killing terrorists, it was L. Nk Goswami’s overpowering need to make sure he evacuated a comrade injured in an encounter. The 2 wounded commandos were now pinned down, sitting ducks for whatever would come next. L. Nk Goswami and his buddy, Havildar Mahendra Singh, sprang from their location towards the 2 injured men, their assault rifles at the ready for what L. Nk Goswami knew would be a hail of bullets directed straight at them.
He was right. The terrorist who had fired the grenade moments earlier now opened a burst of fire with his assault rifle, cutting down Singh with a bullet that entered his abdomen and went straight into his spine, instantly paralysing the lower half of his body. L. Nk Goswami knew that in the next few seconds, his buddy would be torn to shreds in the volley of following bullets. His weapon now in burst mode, L. Nk Goswami sprang from his cover position, firing furiously at the terrorists. Two bullets tore through L. Nk Goswami’s waist, 1 passing straight through him, the other lodged inside. As he crumpled sideways with a roar, he kept his weapon pointed straight, meeting the 2 advancing terrorists with a spurt of shots, killing them just as he crashed to the ground.
Bleeding from his gunshot wounds, L. Nk Goswami attempted to crawl towards Mahendra and the 2 injured jawans under the tree. But as the rain came down a little harder, washing his wounds, L. Nk Goswami seemed to decide to let Death have him.
With cover fire from Maj. Kumar, L. Nk Goswami crawled forward in the darkness towards Mahendra Singh. The injured soldier was quickly secured and pulled to safety for evacuation. Then Maj. Kumar, now on his elbows, pulled himself towards the fallen figure of his favourite soldier.
‘I sat with Mohan, holding his hands through the night. There was no pulse. He would have done the same for me. He would not have left me.’
Maj. Kumar remembers those moments every day since it happened.
‘Sitting there with him, his flesh cold, I don’t remember anything feeling more unreal. A good part of me said he would wake up. This wasn’t a man who could be felled by bullets. And yet here he was—cold.’
The disbelief stretched out through that rainy night.
‘For many moments, I wondered if this was another one of his tactics. To play dead so he could spring up to kill the remaining terrorists,’ Maj. Kumar says, smiling. ‘I actually waited, hoping that was true. I have lost men before, but I couldn’t come to terms with it. I waited till sunrise to see if he would wake up.’
The next day, the officers and jawans of the unit held a bada khaana, an alcohol-fuelled banquet at their headquarters. Through the disbelief and mourning, there was sweeping pride. A man who had walked among them, as jovial as he was fearless, had signed off in the only way he could have wanted—on his terms, doing what he loved. Over drinks to dull the disbelief and sorrow, the men raised their glasses to L. Nk Mohan Nath Goswami that night, hailing him loudly for his fierceness in battle and generosity in victory.
‘He was the very core of an SF soldier. He loved his family and missed them every day. And he was married to the adrenaline of combat.’
As the national media stood mesmerized by the tale of L. Nk Goswami, his mortal remains would travel by road up the hills of Uttarakhand to his wife in their village. Viewers across the country would watch the stoic figure of Bhawna Goswami next to L. Nk Mohan Nath Goswami’s flag-draped casket.
Through uncontrollable tears, his mother, Radha Devi, would appeal to the government: ‘Build a school in his name—a playground in his name. This is what he cherished as a child. This is what he would have wanted for others.’
‘He knowingly pushed himself into a hail of bullets to save his comrade,’ a Lieutenant Colonel with the unit, who led L. Nk Goswami years ago as a troop commander, remembers. ‘We are all working for the country. But in an SF unit, you’re also working for each other. He was emotionally attached to us and his work. He was an ideal SF commando.’
That unwillingness to countenance suffering stretched beyond the battlefield.
‘He had a very soft corner for those suffering,’ recalls L. Nk Goswami’s wife, Bhawna. ‘If he saw a poor person, or someone mentally disturbed, he would give them his clothes. He would never give beggars a rupee or two; he would give them Rs 100! A yogi baba once came to him in a market and asked him to buy him some grapes. He bought him a kilo of grapes! Once, he took off his shirt and jacket and gave it to a naked beggar. He was like that.’
Four months after Operation Sutsalyar, Bhawna Goswami would make her way to Delhi to receive L. Nk Goswami’s posthumous Ashok Chakra, the country’s highest decoration for gallantry in peacetime. She steeled herself as it drizzled that morning on Delhi’s Rajpath.
‘Before we got married, he always said to me that I needed to be prepared for anything. I did feel scared, but it was written in our destinies that we would make our lives together,’ Bhawna, who still lives in Lalkuan, says. ‘In my heart, a voice would tell me that as a commando’s wife, I needed to be as fearless as he was. If one has to die, it can be anywhere.’
Bhumika, L. Nk Goswami’s daughter, is now in a boarding school not far from home.
‘For us, he is always here. He will be with us for a lifetime. It’s just that I can no longer see him. He walks with me. He even talks to me. But I cannot see him.’
A signboard, ‘Shahid Mohan Nath Goswami’, points to the couple’s small home. After his death, Bhawna decided not to complete the construction of the bigger house they had been building across the path from where they lived.
‘My nephews want to be like Mohan. All the children in our family want to take his legacy forward. They say, “He killed ten terrorists; we will kill twenty.”’
In the many tales of inspiring courage in the Special Forces, an abnormal, nearly magical film coats the tale of L. Nk Mohan Nath Goswami.
‘His call sign was jaadugar (magician),’ remembers a fellow warrior who accompanied him on that final mission.
‘I don’t think I will ever see a braver person than him facing fire.’
4
‘Even the Toughest Take Cover. But Not He’
Havildar Hangpan Dada
Shamshabari mountain range, Jammu and Kashmir
26 May 2016
His right hand, cold, blue and dead, was squeezed around the trigger of his Kalashnikov rifle. His face lay half in mountain snow, at a height of 12,000 feet. As life flowed out of him through a gunshot wound in the neck, the Havildar’s dying hand had emptied a full
magazine of bullets. A dead man had fired 30 7.62-mm rounds.
30.
There had always been something other-worldly about Havildar Hangpan Dada. Courage in combat is far from a rarity in the treacherous highlands of Kashmir. But nearly every officer and soldier who fought alongside Havildar Dada swears they have never seen a man so possessed by the fight. A man for whom the world revolved so absolutely around terrorist encounters, his courage was frequently alarming.
‘He became a ghost long before he fell,’ a soldier from his unit would later say. They would be referring to Havildar Dada’s most unforgettable fight. His last.
On 26 May 2016, some 150 km north-west of Srinagar and across the LoC, a group of heavily armed terrorists did a final weapons and stores check as they walked out of their camp nestled in the lush Leepa valley in PoK. Their manner would get steadily less confident, but more furtive, creeping as they neared the front line.
They were departing from one of the most breathtakingly mellow parts of PoK. The Leepa valley draws huge numbers of Pakistani tourists in the summer months. Pictures of happy visitors in the splendid walnut and apple orchards, mountain brooks and meadows throng social media sites each year. But there is a side that few have ever visited, or even seen in pictures—a side infested with terror launch pads from where infiltrators are regularly dispatched across the LoC into J&K.
It was pitch dark and raining that May night as the 4 men began their hike towards the LoC. Flashes of lightning lit up a snowy ridgeline of the Shamshabari mountain range, the formidable natural barrier they would have to cross to reach the Kashmir valley. The barrier was where Indian soldiers held positions at heights of more than 14,000 feet, each post commanding a panoramic vista of unspeakable beauty—but also uninterrupted danger.
The posts, vacated in the winter of 2015, had been reoccupied by the troops barely a week before to choke off infiltration that begins with the onset of summer. For logistical reasons, it is not unusual for the Army to withdraw soldiers from desolate forward outposts in J&K to lower altitudes at winter’s peak, before sending them back to control the positions once the weather improves. The unforgiving winter shuts down all infiltration routes, giving soldiers rare downtime in an unending cycle of combat.
