Recollecting with Col Raman Kapila - The Insurgency in J&K - 1909s

 

Recollecting with Col Raman Kapila  - The Insurgency in J&K - 1990s - by Dinesh K Kapila

Raman is my first cousin, we are close. He joined the Army in the Infantry (Rajput Regiment) and when the terrorism cum insurgency arose in the early 1990s, he was in the thick of it with multiple stints in the Mountainous regions of the Jammu Region and in Kashmir.  He  had his fair share of successes and at times failures or rather what military men style as setbacks. This does happen, more so, in a fluid and ever changing scenario as it was then, it was chaos and confusion as the units adjusted themselves. Then it was Pakistani Army regulars often being inducted to train and motivate and to set up the camps and units. They were committed and gave no quarter and firmly believed a change was on the cards.

Raman, now retired, and greying, has often over a glass or two at times exchanged his views and his recollections with me. He has experienced what every Army officer of that time would have undergone, specially from the fighting arms. In a sense what he rarely shares is but what most men from the services would have witnessed and gone through on a daily basis. His view is that the mountainous regions of Jammu can be horrendous, extremely steep and with isolated hamlets. They test you physically and mentally. The gentler slopes of the Kashmir Valley are much better on the knees and physical stress.

Yet, one thing I notice in him and many other army officers, there is no hatred or ill will for the local population as such, they did it for their nation for the duty vested with them, and have moved on in life. So in a sense what I share from what we talk at times is what most Army Officers have seen and with public indifference being what it is in India, shrugged and moved on. There are many  incidents as regards counter insurgency which Raman has at times shared with me.     

My favourite is about the LMG wielding Jasbir Singh, his role comes in much later in a major skirmish, but he stands out. This was around 1993. Raman as Company Commander was tasked to move to Doda, yet unexplored as regards terror groups,  it was an overnight march across steep terrain. He was with the 10 RR then, if I remember correctly. They were near village Pukarwas and they had credible intelligence that this area in general had been impacted by trained terrorists and with Pakistani Regulars in charge. One day, it was around 5:30 am and he was leading Alpha Company. On a patrol. In those years, bulletproof jackets were rare and prized, they had two in all. So the two men leading would be given the jackets and the rest would follow. Seeing a green house away from the village, Raman decided to skirt the house and the village by some distance. It was purely by intuition and some knowledge about local opinion makers. Suddenly they were under heavy fire and they fell back. It takes time for even trained professional soldiers, battle hardened at that, to gather information, regroup and then respond. While the sporadic response was immediately there, Raman and his Radio Man moved swiftly to assess the situation. To retaliate, they had to know exactly from where the firing had been initiated and to assess the level of response required.  Plus the insurgent or rather terrorist will always have limited ammunition. Raman decided to wait and observe. Plus it was now clear the house and it’s nearby areas were the base and that women and children were also inside and being used as human shields.  Raman  meanwhile decided to run around the sheer cliffs and site the men. Risky, but then that is the job. Jasbir with his LMG was sited to the Right of the house at a decline and instructed to be facing towards the village and partially only towards the house. Raman had run from the left to deploy the men and meanwhile, in the absence of a microphone he advised his JCO to shout to the women and children to come out. We ought to remember this is occurring in real time. And its non stop and at times simultaneously and punctuated with firing and abuses.

Raman soon learnt the group holed up inside was well led. The insurgents had also waited, sized up the matter and zeroed in on the leader. They decided to go for him. They missed Raman but got his Radio Man, Shiv Singh. He dropped dead due to a shot to his temple. Both sides were using sniper rifles too and Raman was attempting to plug the gaps and move in. Jasbir meanwhile was all by himself, cool and collected, and incredibly, in all the mayhem, Raman saw he was singing to himself and even using a one stringed instrument ! In the meantime Mohammad, another Jawan with Raman’s company, walked up with a Rocket Launcher. He was emotional and told Raman that Shiv Singh was his buddy, he wanted revenge. Raman told him to wait and that his turn would come. Meanwhile Raman lost another man. And then the RL was used. They fired a HE (High Explosive) round which can penetrate and detonate.   Two terrorists died while a preacher staying with them ran the other way.   Then a six feet five inches guy was observed moving swiftly with a Dragunov sniper rifle and attempting to escape. He seemed to have another weapon with him too. Raman saw him and amidst the shouting and mayhem started shouting out to Jasbir to look up and towards the house and to be alert. There were terrace fields and the large sized guy was jumping on the bunds and moving towards a nullah. He was seeking shelter there. Jasbir was singing away laconically while Raman was shouting in Punjabi to him (Jasbir was from 10 Sikh LI) and suddenly Jasbir swung around and came face to face with the guy. They had an exchange with the large sized guy shouting to him to make way or surrender. Jasbir abused him roundly in Punjabi very effectively and simultaneously simply shot him down. His papers would reveal he was a JCO (Junior Commissioned Officer)  in the Pakistani Army. It took eight guys to bury him. Try thinking of all this on a real time basis.

The story does not there.  These guys camped there, then the next day when they left, they saw a collection of tubelights with coloured lights. And they saw it at another location on the way back, and a bit too late realised they were sympathisers passing on messages. They were ambushed but after a protracted engagement, calling upon all their training and skills, and with astute leadership, extricated themselves. The used Very Lights as they lacked mortar flares. The ambushers simply melted away in the darkness.

Just by the way, this was a time of intrigue and involved the organising of a chain of informers too. Raman lost a relation, Captain Rohit Kaushal in Doda the brave young cub, was enticed by a group of terrorists that they wanted to surrender. He was killed in an unbecoming manner. The young brave lad was raring to go always and was misled by an informer.    Most officers train and will themselves to always be on guard with informers. But mistakes still happen or when the trust at times overcomes caution.  

Raman has had stints in the valley too. At Khanabal, the FCI had a chain of warehouses and in 1991, he was ambushed thrice. Once the insurgents even used boats on the River Jhelum to fire at the army units. Locating the firing positions, redeploying men, shouting orders and firing back is always a mentally strenuous task. Then in Ganderbal in 1992, he was deployed at the Cattle Breeding Farm, surrounded by fenced in farms. Around 17-20 terrorists carried out a major raid on them. LMGs were also used during the falling dusk cum night. And finally rocket launchers, Both sides lost two men each. As Raman says, they were led by professional Pakistanis and well trained. As he recollects, there were three to four such raids cum ambushes by the terrorists cum Pakistani regulars before they could tap into loyalists cum informers and then started quietening them down by effective ambushes and attacks. Some cultured loyalists, outstanding citizens of society, paid for even chatting with the soldiers with their lives. Strange experiences were there, finding caches of arms in graves and once buried under water tanks. Raman made one of the largest hauls of a cache of munitions at that time, reported by the Frontline magazine.    

These incidents live on in the minds of soldiers, there is a quiet professional satisfaction at having contributed one’s best and to have come out unscathed.

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