IN
A FIRST, INDIA STRIKES JEHADIS ACROSS LOC
As India conducted its first surgical strikes
across the LoC early on Thursday, the Para Special Forces of the Army have come
into spotlight.
The Special Forces are units under the direct command of the
military and specially organised, highly trained and equipped to conduct swift
pin-pointed strikes and hit strategic targets within an enemy or hostile
territory. Surgical strikes are Intelligence-based precision attacks on
strategic targets inside a hostile territory without incurring or inflicting collateral
damage.
The Para commandos could count only a few bodies of the slain
jehadis while many others were shredded to bits due to use of weapons like RPO
flame throwers, grenade launchers and Carl Gustav among others, sources said.
The movement of the terrorists was tracked through drones and
communication satellites and the same was shared with the PMO. An estimated 12
jehadis were there inside each launching pad and the Para commandos killed the
sentries guarding such pads by using silencer-fitted sniper rifles following
which the jehadis inside were killed, the sources said.
For their part, the Ghatak platoons of the Bihar and Dogra
Regiment, who too were part of the operations, opened rapid fire on three
launch pads closer to the LoC (600 mt to 1.2 km). Sources said six to 12
Pakistan Army personnel manning these staging posts would have been killed
through artillery firing. The Ghataks then crossed the LoC and killed smaller
squad of the fidayeens. While the operations were coming to a close, two truck
loads of SSG Border Action Teams and Pak Rangers were sent in for
reinforcements but when they arrived and saw the volume of fire they ran, they
said. The Ghataks then covered the Paras’ egress back.
The SF unit was created in 1965 by the Indian Army when it used to
be a small ad hoc force comprising volunteers from infantry units and operated
along and behind enemy lines during the Indo-Pak war that year. Later, the SF
was organised into Para commando units which were first deployed in the
Indo-Pak war in 1971. The Para units also took part in the 1984 Operation Blue
Star. They were deployed in Sri Lanka in the eighties in the operation against
LTTE, Operation Cactusin in 1988 in Maldives and Kargil War in 1999.
Even before conducting the surgical strike against the jehadis on
Thursday, the Government had been keeping two units of the Army's special
forces-4 Para and 9 Para—based in Jammu & Kashmir on standby in the wake of
the Uri terror attack.
The retaliatory strike comes amid escalating tension between India
and Pakistan in the wake of yet another terror attack exported by Pakistan
through the jehadi affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammad whose fidayeens burnt alive 18
soldiers and injured about 30 Indian Army personnel in a pre-dawn attack at a
Battalion headquarters at the Uri town near the Line of Control in Jammu &
Kashmir on September 18.
One Para comprises 1,000 personnel including highly trained
commandos and the equipment includes a host of latest weaponry and gadgets
including high altitude parachutes, underwater scooters and state-of-the art
communication sets among others. The Army has raised 10 Para units for
conducting special operations.
Following the Uri attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured
the nation that "this attack will not go unpunished." Defence
Minister Manohar Parrikar had subsequently said the PM's statement will not
remain just a statement indicating impending action against the terror groups.
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