by Shiv Aroor
The other man named in the briefing wasn’t of high terror pedigree, but no less notorious—Mehmud Bhai was the LeT’s north Kashmir commander. In classified lists of wanted terrorists in Kashmir, both names were high up on the first page.
Corporal Jyoti knew what every man in the room was thinking. Actually, for over a month, they had thought of little else.
Only thirty-seven days earlier, two men from their unit, Sergeant Khairnar Milind Kishor and Corporal Nilesh Kumar Nayan, had painstakingly tracked down and killed two senior LeT terrorist commanders in a brutal, brief eight-minute pre-dawn operation at Bandipora’s Rakh Hajin village. It was an operation that would have tested the IAF in a never-before role, and its Garud commando force had only recently been deployed in counter-terror operations. At 4.40 a.m. on 11 October 2017, while Sergeant Milind fought and killed one of the surrounded terrorists at close range, even after being shot multiple times, his buddy, Corporal Nilesh, in an act of indescribable courage, took direct fire from the terrorists just so he could provide cover to his track leader. He killed the second terrorist before succumbing to his injuries.
The killing of these terrorists, Abu Bakar and Nassuralla Mir, had come at the heaviest price imaginable for the Garuds—both soldiers returned to their villages the next day in flag-draped coffins. Both would later be posthumously awarded the country’s third-highest peacetime gallantry award, the Shaurya Chakra. Milind would be decorated for displaying ‘bravery of the highest order in leading the attack’, while Nilesh would be commended for having displayed ‘extreme valour and the highest order of camaraderie with total disregard to personal safety’. Their partnership and sacrifice would serve as a reminder of what it meant to be ‘blood brothers’, a phrase that’s just a cliche outside the military.
Since then, not a moment had passed when the men of 617 Garud Flight hadn’t wanted revenge on the LeT.
‘The operation that we are about to launch could be one of the biggest we Garuds have undertaken in Kashmir,’ the CO told his men. ‘Milind and Nilesh are gone because of these people. It’s time to make them fear the Garuds and show them what we are capable of.’
No detail was spared during that hour-long briefing. Every patch of the layout of Chandargeer, the village the two terrorists were said to be in—the number of houses, count of inhabitants and the approach that the squad would take—were all laid out on a series of projected images on a screen. Not that the commandos were not familiar with Chandargeer—it had been on their radar since the 11 October operation, which involved not just the Garuds, but also the Army’s 9 Para Special Forces and two units of the counter-insurgency force, the RR.
The unit had actually been on the hunt for Osama Jungi and Mehmud Bhai long before the fatal Rakh Hajin operation. Both terrorists had managed to give the Garuds and their counterparts in the Army’s Special Forces units the slip on a number of occasions, reinforcing the superiority of the LeT’s formidable on-ground intelligence and its local network, enforced as much with ideology and radicalization as with threats of violence to families. The deaths of their two comrades had energized the Air Force unit’s hunt. When their CO revealed that the terrorists’ locations had finally been reliably tracked to Chandargeer, every man in that room was thinking of payback.
Corporal Jyoti certainly was. A week after the loss of Milind and Nilesh, he would proceed on leave for Diwali to see his family in Chandigarh. Over three days, he spoke of virtually nothing else, remembers his wife, Sushma Nand.
‘Jyoti surprised us by landing up at home on Diwali, 19 October,’ says Sushma. ‘I immediately sensed that he was a changed man, shaken by the loss. He showed us pictures of Milind and Nilesh and talked endlessly about them. He was in a very emotional state and couldn’t hold back his tears. He wanted to get even, but he was just in deep mourning. They lived and worked like brothers.’
Nudged by his wife, Corporal Jyoti would change the subject and put on a happy face when Jigyasa accosted him for stories, always with an endless barrage of questions about his work. They had named her prophetically—‘Jigyasa’ means curiosity, inquisitiveness.
‘I could tell that it was very difficult for him to come to terms with the loss,’ says Sushma. ‘It was Diwali and we were spending happy times with our extended family. But Jyoti was a broken man. I would find him awake in the middle of the night, in tears. He would tell me that nothing was going to console him except getting even. What could I say to that?’
A month later, Jigyasa would wonder why her father wasn’t accepting her incessant WhatsApp video calls. Her mother assured her that her father was probably busy and would probably call later that evening.
Walking back to his barracks from the operations room, Corporal Jyoti switched his phone back on, immediately tapping WhatsApp open and placing a video call to his wife’s phone. Jigyasa answered in a second.
‘Papa, aap ghar kab aaoge? Mujhe nayi kahani kab sunaoge (Papa, when will you come home? When will you tell me a new story)?’ the little girl asked straightaway.
‘Main jaldi aaonga, beta. Mujhe subah chaar baje uthna hai. Aap ko bhi ab so jaana chahiye (I will come soon. I have to wake up at 4 a.m. It’s your bedtime too),’ said Corporal Jyoti, convincing his daughter after several minutes to hand the phone to her mother.
‘He sounded tired but alert,’ says Sushma. ‘He said he had an early start. We spoke for barely two minutes and then said goodnight.’
Corporal Jyoti and the eighteen men of 617 Garud Flight barely managed three hours of sleep that night. Before first light the following day, they were at the high-security base of 13 RR.
Attached to the Indian Army’s 13 RR, the Garuds had arrived in Kashmir three months earlier for a six-month tour of duty, the first such IAF ground deployment in a counter-terror role in the Kashmir Valley in more than a decade. Corporal Jyoti had volunteered to join the Garud Commando Force in 2006 when he was twenty years old and just a year into service in the Air Force, enlisting from his village of Badladih in Bihar’s Rohtas district.
The Garuds had been raised in 2004 as a specialized force to protect airfields, IAF bases and sensitive establishments, though their role and spectrum of responsibilities has widened and evolved since then. Garud units have begun training for offensive strikes, much like the Army’s Para Special Forces, been deployed on UN Peacekeeping missions abroad, assisted in humanitarian operations and, as of 2017, with the unit in question, been inserted into the Kashmir Valley for counter-terror operations. Corporal Jyoti had been handpicked by Squadron Leader Chauhan.
More detailed briefings followed at the 13 RR base in Manasbal, and it was decided that two combat teams would take part in the daytime operation to hunt down Osama Jungi and Mehmud Bhai. An eleven-man Garud squad was formed to be led by Sqn Ldr Rajiv, and another eleven-member 13 RR team was to be commanded by an Army Major.
As it happened, the 18 November operation that was about to unfold had tangible links to the previous month’s encounter in Rakh Hajin, in which Milind and Nilesh had died after killing Abu Bakar and Nassuralla Mir. Seized mobile phones, documents and intercepted phone calls of terrorists injured in that firefight had all pointed in one direction—Chandargeer in Bandipora.
Two rickety civilian trucks trundled out of the 13 RR base that afternoon, moving at an unhurried pace towards Chandargeer. The first truck, covered with yellow tarpaulin, carried the eleven Garud commandos. Their CO sat in the front passenger seat wearing a phiran, a traditional loose Kashmiri garment, to conceal his camouflage battle fatigues. All the men sported beards of varying thickness.
Corporal Jyoti had been quietly pensive since the day began. In the truck, he spoke, ‘Aaj Milind aur Nilesh ka badla lena hai (We have to avenge the deaths of Milind and Nilesh today),’ he whispered to Sergeant Sandeep Kumar, the commando sitting next to him. ‘Bahut intezaar kiya hai. Jitne zyada terrorists milen, utna hi accha hai (We have waited too long for this. The more terrorists we find, the better).’
Sergeant San
deep nodded, the barrel of his fully-loaded, standard issue, Israel-made Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle pointing towards the truck’s floor. Corporal Jyoti was holding the deadliest weapon the squad was carrying that day, an Israel-made Negev light machine gun (LMG), with an attached ammunition belt that held 150 rounds.
In the second truck was the RR squad. The two trucks kept a distance of 100 m between them on the 30-minute drive to Chandargeer. It was crucial that they maintained some distance between them because the village sat on a knoll, and any movement could be spotted from 2 km away. The trucks were handpicked to minimize suspicion, since such vehicles regularly plied the roads in the area, including in Chandargeer, hauling timber from sawmills.
The Garud squad had done its homework well before their CO had received the intelligence input that had set them on course for Chandargeer. A few houses in the village had been under surveillance by the Garuds for several days, with reconnaissance patrols sent out regularly to collect information about terrorist movement. The patrolling teams had taken photographs and videos to acquaint the squad with the likely target area.
‘Dressed in civvies, my men had managed to gather intelligence both from vehicles and on foot,’ says Sqn Ldr Rajiv. ‘The last recce was on 14 November. My men had walked the nooks and crannies of Chandargeer, which has around 200 houses and 1500-odd inhabitants. When our ground contact phoned me with intelligence of the whereabouts of Osama Jungi and Mehmud Bhai, it basically confirmed what we had suspected.’
Not for a second doubting the reliability and trustworthiness of his source, Sqn Ldr Rajiv still decided to corroborate the information he had received. Counter-terrorism specialists in the Kashmir Valley know that nothing is of greater significance than accurate and detailed intelligence. And given that the input was coincidentally about the very terrorists the unit had been hunting, the CO needed to be absolutely sure that he wasn’t leading his men into a death trap.
The effort to cross-check the intelligence input paid off in a critical way. Shortly before the squads left the base in their trucks, a fresh intelligence input landed, indicating that Osama Jungi and Mehmud Bhai were not alone in the target area—at least four other LeT terrorists had joined them there. The encounter would now be against six highly trained terrorists, instead of two. While the intelligence was useful in confirming the presence of the two senior LeT commanders, it also made the men realize that the operation ahead would be dramatically more difficult than they had anticipated.
When the Garud squad had piled into their truck, their CO had exhorted them with, ‘We have a chance to eliminate the top LeT leadership in one go. It doesn’t get better than this. And this time, we are doing this without taking any casualties. Hum badhiya operation karenge (We will conduct a good operation).’
The teams were to be launched from the base at 1 p.m., but their departure was rescheduled as the squad leaders factored in the possibility of the terrorists going to the village mosque for afternoon prayers.
‘We thought, let the afternoon prayers be done, let them have their lunch and allow them some rest. That’s when we will strike,’ says Sqn Ldr Rajiv.
The trucks rumbled past a gently rising and falling landscape studded with poplar trees, the serene Bandipora countryside belying the dangerous work on the path ahead. A commando in the truck quipped, ‘Bandipora is famous for its three As—a’lim (knowledge), adab (good habits) and aab (water). But we are more interested in a different ‘A’ today—Category A++ terrorists!’
Conversation remained sparse on the 30-minute drive to Chandargeer. If any man spoke, it was about the mission that was about to begin.
‘Jitne zyada terrorists milein, utna hi accha hai (The more terrorists, the better),’ said another commando in the truck, Corporal Devendra Mehta, echoing his buddy Corporal Jyoti’s words.
Arriving at Chandargeer at 3.27 p.m., the trucks rumbled slowly past a few houses in the village before rolling to a halt a short distance from where the terrorists were believed to be hiding. The two teams quietly climbed out of their trucks and approached a cluster of six houses that had to be cordoned off to prevent anyone inside from getting away.
Sqn Ldr Rajiv and the 13 RR Army Major quickly organized their twenty-two men into a wide cordon around the cluster of homes. Corporal Jyoti and Corporal Devendra were positioned at a spot that their CO felt would be the route most likely to be used by any terrorist looking to escape. Just how many terrorists were hiding in that cluster would be revealed minutes later, but with the cordon, all escape routes were now effectively blocked.
‘We wasted no time and immediately took our positions,’ says Sqn Ldr Rajiv. ‘These positions concealed us from the terrorists’ possible line of sight and provided us cover from any incoming fire. The chances of getting hit are the highest when a cordon is being laid. But once you have settled into your positions, you are likely to be relatively safe.’
The CO had scanned the target site as best he could before the cordon was laid. An effective cordon demands that soldiers have the best possible view of what they’ve cordoned off, with as much of the target area visible as possible, while still providing protection from outbound fire. It’s a delicate, difficult balance that goes way beyond simply surrounding a house. A cordon that relies too much on providing cover to the troops deprives them of a view of the target, and exponentially increases the chances of the target’s escape. Too little cover makes troops vulnerable to terrorists, who get to fire accurately from the protected confines of a house.
‘It was critical for me to make sure that my Garuds could acquire targets with ease,’ says Sqn Ldr Rajiv. ‘I wanted my men to have the best field of fire to take the terrorists out quickly. If the terrorists were to take the escape route I thought they would, they would most certainly run into Nirala and Mehta.’
The cordon established, the men lay in wait. The two squads had moved stealthily to take position around the cluster of homes, but none of the men was depending very much on the element of surprise. It was almost certain that if the terrorists were indeed inside one of the houses, they were likely to have been tipped off by their contacts in the village. The LeT’s human intelligence network remains without par among foreign terrorist organizations operating in Kashmir.
The men didn’t have to wait long. The first rounds were fired less than sixty seconds after the cordon was laid. And they came from an AK-47 inside one of the houses. As those first bullets came flying, an ironic sigh of relief passed through the cordon. It was confirmed now that the intelligence they had received was accurate. The terrorists knew they had been surrounded and, as expected, had decided to put up a fight.
The 13 RR team was tightening its cordon at around 3.40 p.m. when a figure emerged in a flash from the rear door of one of the houses, lunged towards the soldiers with his assault rifle and directed a fully automatic spray of ammunition at them. In seconds, a Garud commando cut him down with a hail of return fire. He crumpled to the ground, motionless. How many more terrorists were holed up in the cluster was still unclear at this point. But if their intelligence was 100 per cent accurate, there were at least five more inside. The cordon slowly tightened.
Ninety seconds after the first terrorist was gunned down, five men leapt out of the same house, each one of them firing their weapons at the Garud and RR men, who were barely 20 m away. Two of the terrorists were also firing from under-barrel grenade launchers (UBGLs) attached to their rifles. So in addition to the spray of bullets came the deadly explosion of grenades, with shrapnel flying in every direction.
The bullets flew inches above their heads, making a distinct crack sound. Corporal Jyoti and his buddy had a split-second to dive for cover as one of the grenades exploded dangerously close to them. The sound of gunfire now filled the air in Chandargeer.
Negev light machine gun
The five terrorists quickly grouped together and began moving in a single file towards the position held by Corporal Jyoti, their fire focused in every direction so they
could approach unchallenged. Jyoti and Corporal Devendra were the first commandos to engage the advancing terrorists in close-range combat because of where they were stationed. Their CO had been right—the terrorists had chosen precisely the path he thought they would to make a break and escape.
From his position, Corporal Jyoti watched the terrorists, now just over 10 m away and advancing. In moments, they would be within breathing distance. How many times had he heard of situations like these, when small groups of terrorists had used heavy and indiscriminate fire to fight their way out of a cordon and escape? Milind and Nilesh flashed through his mind as he wondered if the opportunity for revenge was seconds away from slipping out of his hands. He turned to look at his buddy Garud. Their eyes met for a moment. And then, Corporal Devendra watched as his fellow Garud did something entirely unexpected.
Corporal Jyoti suddenly sprang up, abandoning the safety of his cover. He had decided to head straight into the advancing line of terrorists.
‘I remember Jyoti’s eyes just before he stepped forward,’ says Corporal Devendra. ‘They were blazing with fury. He had made up his mind. Nobody could have stopped him.’
Corporal Jyoti charged at the terrorists with his LMG. This was a weapon capable of firing a stunning 150 rounds per minute. Expending the 150 rounds the belt was holding that Saturday afternoon would take mere seconds once the trigger was pulled.
‘What are you doing, Jyoti?’ Corporal Devendra screamed. ‘Don’t lose your cover! Come back!’
But, as his buddy had correctly observed, Corporal Jyoti had made up his mind. With the terrorists in his direct line of sight and a perfect field of fire, the commando tightened his hold on the handle of his machine gun and rained down multiple 5.56 mm rounds at them with a single trigger squeeze. A few metres to his right was his CO.
‘Tck tck tck tck tck tck—all I could hear was the rat-a-tat of his LMG fire,’ says Sqn Ldr Rajiv. ‘Woh fire karta jaa raha tha. Bas karta jaa raha tha. Woh nazara kuch aur tha (He just kept firing non-stop. That sight was something else).’
