Ajit Doval – Operation Black Thunder

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NSA Ajit Doval : Operation Black Thunder

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The spectacular success of Operation Black Thunder in Amritsar last fortnight cleared the Golden Temple complex of terrorists. It also gave the Government a golden opportunity to take fresh initiatives on the festering crisis in Punjab.

Swathed in the mild, milky glow of the crescent moon, the shrine was an awe-inspiring sight. The gold that covers its top half-shimmered softly, its reflection swaying lazily in the serene waters of the holy sarovar, and added a new surreal dimension to the temple’s divinity.

But there was something amiss. The quiet and the desolation of the evening was just as uncharacteristic as the empty marble-lined parikrama and the glass splinters scattered on it. There were no notes of shabad kirtan wafting in the air, nor the usual incense.

There was, instead, an unbearable stink. Stink from the bodies that lay on the parikrama, stink of rotting food and stink of the indiscretions of the 46 men and one woman who had holed up in the Golden Temple’s sanctum sanctorum for more than 72 hours, filling the vessels inside with excreta and subjecting it to the kind of desecration not even their staunchest critics had expected from the self-proclaimed defenders of the Sikh faith.

On that quiet, yet eventful, evening in Amritsar last fortnight, many myths and reputations lay shattered and just a few redeemed. Only a few days earlier, Malkiat Singh Ajnala, the self-styled Lt-general of the Khalistan Commando Force had threatened to kill thousands of troops before one could enter the temple: “Tell Ribeiro to hire trucks to pick his men’s bodies. There will be thousands,” he had boasted.

Now he meekly watched a government doctor stitch his bleeding shoulder. Hiding his face from cameras was Nirwair Singh, spokesman of the secessionist Panthic Committee. And on the parikrama lay the massive body of “Lt-general” Karaj Singh Thande who, true to his word of never falling in police hands alive, had swallowed cyanide.

But even his desperate act, as that of at least three others including the well-known terrorist Surjit Singh Penta, could not lighten the intensity of the blow, tactical and psychological, that Operation Black Thunder-II had delivered to terrorism in Punjab. In contrast to the messy Operation Bluestar of June 1984 which left 1,000 dead inside the temple, including 150 armymen, this operation was relatively bloodless: only 30 were killed by the security forces who lost none of their own.

Unlike the wild upsurge in rural Punjab four years ago when thousands marched to Amritsar, this time not more than a few scores stirred. Nor were there rumours of atrocities this time as the operation was conducted in full view of the world media. And unlike earlier, very few managed to escape the siege.

There are vital differences between Black Thunder-II and Bluestar. The terrorists of May 1988 were no match to Bhindranwale’s suicide squads in motivation or fire-power. They had no cult figure inspiring them to fight till the end. And they were facing a government which had spent four years absorbing the lessons of Bluestar.

The remarkable success of Black Thunder-II was mainly a result of painstaking, long-term planning by men who put their minds together to deliver the first vital, if not decisive, blow to the fundamentalist militancy in Punjab.

The Planning

At Manesar, in the National Security Guards’ (NSG) main complex nestling in the rocky Aravalis 40 km from New Delhi sat Ved Marwah, the new director-general of the elite anti-terrorist force. There were men slithering down helicopters simulating break-ins into buildings under siege, snipers picking out distantly-placed earthen pitchers with amazing accuracy and squads bursting into rooms, throwing grenades and firing from the hip.

For more than three months, his officers had been planning for the inevitable. From the day the guns returned to the temple, intelligence reports reaching NSG headquarters in New Delhi’s staid Pragati Vihar Central Police Organisations complex spoke of the imminent need to use force.

Without delay, officers, assisted by handpicked juniors, began weekend trips to Amritsar. They wore Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) uniforms and, armed with just binoculars and sketch pads, they spent hours at the CRPF pickets around the temple.

On March 9 when Jasbir Singh Rode was anointed Akal Takht head priest, officers were at the pickets watching every movement, counting heads, guns and identifying faces. Some officers stopped trimming their beards for the occasional, but vital walk inside the temple.

It was tempting to peep inside the parikrama rooms, but they were ordered to avoid doing so. For, being caught meant sure torture and death. The video films made by the army after Bluestar gave an idea of the rooms.

One showed a brick wall built across the room just inside the entrance. An unsuspecting soldier could throw a grenade at it, only to have it rebound. A mock-up was created at Manesar, a tent used to simulate the wall and troops trained to negotiate it. The brains of NSG veterans of Black Thunder I – the futile raid on the temple on April 30, 1986 after the Panthic Committee announced the “formation” of Khalistan – were also picked.

Other games were being played in Manesar in deadly earnest. With a pile of children’s building blocks, officers built a large model of the temple complex, juxtaposing it with photographs. To give the ranks a better feel of what lay ahead, officers scoured nearby towns, and chose two buildings: a high school at Tauru and a college at Nuh, both within an hour’s drive from Manesar. The structures of both resembled the parikrama. Soon incredulous residents of the small towns watched commandos scurrying about in mock attacks on the buildings.

With the basics sorted out, it was time to get into the specifics. Each squadron (the NSG operates in battalion-strength groups, each with three fighting squadrons of 100 men apiece) was allocated a specific part of the temple complex.

The main entrances were to be avoided as terrorist gun emplacements covered these with uncanny accuracy. Also, in June 1984, the army had made infantry charges at night and through the main entrances, suffering heavy casualties. Now it was also decided to launch the assault in daylight. “It is best if we can see the adversaries clearly. After all, we are much better trained than them,” says an officer.

The plan was now complete: as soon as the Government took the decision to raid the temple, the NSG would fly in its number 51 Special Action Group (SAG) besides one or more of its Special Ranger Groups for tactical and cordon back-up. The rangers would cordon the area along with the CRPF and the action group would break into the parikrama at several preselected spots, in some places by-breaching the wall with explosives.

The Tools

Such a special operation required special tools. The NSG bought its commandos a highly specialised array of weaponry – the standard personal weapon being the West German MP5 submachine-gun, a weapon of remarkable accuracy and range. Some also carried the ubiquitous AK-47 which has tormented Indian troops in Punjab and in Jaffna. “We learnt from the guerrillas,” says an officer. “At close range, the guerrilla’s best weapon is also the soldier’s best weapon.”

The assault troops were also backed up by an effective force multiplier: snipers, for whom an expensive new rifle had recently been procured, the PSG-1 from West Germany’s Heckler and Koch company. The giant rifle is actually the size of a light machine-gun and has great accuracy up to 1,000 yards: the manufacturer’s manual says it should be able to pick a man’s shirt buttons at 700 yards.

Its 7.62 mm bullet travels at a velocity much higher than that of the ordinary rifle and can slice a brick off a battlement at that distance. The telescopic sight is accurate and the passive night vision device that lights up the target area by concentrating star light, gives the sniper murderous reach. Specialised ferret ammunition was available to thrust irritating gases through thick wooden doors and walls. It would have come handy in case the terrorists hiding in the temple needed to be smoked out.

The commandos wore heavy flak jackets, extraordinarily weighty helmets and besides the hi-tech razzle-dazzle, carried plenty of home-made stuff improvised for the operation. There were, for example, gun cotton and plastique slabs tied to wooden poles for blasting barred entry doors; other poles carried Molotov cocktails, to cause small fires and panic.

On May 13, the operation commanders anticipating the worst asked the Government to buy canisters of CS/CN gas from the US, just in case the terrorists had to be smoked out of their hide-outs. Three days later the canisters were being off-loaded by an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft at Amritsar. Armed to the teeth thus, SAG commandos waited for the final launch.

The Buildup

Nothing tests the nerve of the elite soldier more than the unending wait for action. For more than two months, all leave was cancelled for the NSG men. But the situation relaxed a little with the arrival of Rode and the political initiative gave commando preparations the backseat. Twenty-five per cent leave was restored but officers kept on visiting the temple regularly. Then, suddenly, came the shooting of CRPF Deputy Inspector General Sarabdeep Singh Virk.

The Government was left with no choice but to unleash the commandos. It is a moot point now but it is possible that if that one trigger-happy terrorist had not made the mistake of firing at Virk, the history of Punjab would not have taken this turn. Virk himself talks about it philosophically: “Overall, it was not such a bad exchange,” he told INDIA TODAY from his bed in Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital.

As doctors in Amritsar struggled to restore Virk’s shattered jaw, things began moving in New Delhi at a frenetic pace. Immediately, a meeting was held in the office of Union Home Minister Buta Singh and a detailed plan drafted. This was followed by 11 major meetings, and at eight of them Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was present.

Buta Singh and Minister of State for Home P. Chidambaram also visited the NSG operations room. In the action plan, 23 points around the temple were selected for firing at the terrorists. A cool though visibly indignant prime minister personally cleared the plan but put two difficult conditions: first, that the forces would not enter the main temple complex and second, that casualties were to be avoided.

The Execution

Once the orders were given, the execution proceeded like clockwork. A constant stream of IAF aircraft flew about 1,000 commandos and their equipment to Amritsar. The first to take up position were the snipers. The first pair climbed atop the 300-ft-high water tank behind the Guru Ramdas Serai. From their perch that dominated even the two 18th century towers – the Ramgarhia Bungas – on which the main terrorist defences were located, they picked out victims at will.

Among the first to pay the price for underestimating this deadly new threat was Panthic Committee spokesman, Jagir Singh. He sneaked out of his hide-out in room number 14 on the parikrama momentarily to drink water and was shot in the head.

Another militant peeped out to drag him back, and was shot as well. The two bodies lay rotting as the 45 degree celsius heat engulfed the area in unbearable stench. Later, interrogation of the surrendered terrorists showed that it was the clinical shooting of Jagir Singh that demoralised them the most.

Also, once the first call for surrender was given on May 15, even the most hard core terrorists decided to move out of the stinking hell to the temple’s sanctum sanctorum where they were left with no choice but to ultimately surrender. Said an officer later: “We played the game according to the rules the terrorists made. They kill one to terrify thousands. We killed one to scare at least a few scores.”

After Jagir Singh was hit, snipers kept up a relentless pressure. After initial volleys of fire from the towers and battlements on the clock tower, the militants decided it was wiser to stay under cover. In three days, snipers and other gunmen on the pickets had killed 20 militants. They shot at everything that moved – even a stray dog that walked into the parikrama on a quiet, lonely night.

As the snipers got on with their job, officers planned the next moves atop the Brahm Buta Akhara – a shrine built nearly 500 years ago by Guru Nanak Dev’s sons – on the edge of the temple complex. Presiding over the strategy sessions often was the redoubtable Director-General of Punjab Police Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, 53.

He was just as unflappable directing one of the most crucial police operations in Indian history as he had been in Guwahati in March 1983 as Inspector General, law and order, when the news of the Nellie massacre came in. “This man is an iceberg. Nothing moves him,” said one of his awed juniors.

Over the years Gill has argued that the battle with the terrorists is best fought in the mind, which is what shaped his strategy now. “There is no question of our entering the parikrama area,” he kept promising confidently. Even the men under his command went about systematically softening the militants. The operation began, quite literally, with the softening of the Ramgarhia Bunga.

In the 18th century, as the Sikhs split into various clans called misils that often fought each other, several of these bungas (abodes) were constructed around the temple. The idea was that when people came to the temple they kept their arms in their respective misil’s bungas and thereby avoided violence inside.

But their 20th century descendants use the only surviving bunga for an entirely different purpose: to guard the approaches to the temple. Two tall towers linked with a maze-like basement constitute the Ramgarhia Bunga.

Even during Operation Bluestar, the army had had its hardest time clearing the area and had suffered at least 40 casualties in the process. Over the past few weeks too, the CRPF found the right tower particularly bothersome.

The jawans on the Brahm Buta Akhara were forced to duck as militants poured fire from atop their fortifications on the tower. But in the NSG blueprint, a neat plan had already been made to neutralise the bunga. On the evening of May 15, the softening of the towers began.

The NSG used .5-inch heavy machine-guns to fire thousands of bullets on the towers, lighting up the sky with bright red flares and chipping out neat circles almost a metre in diameter. The purpose soon became clear.

The commandos moved 84-mm Carl Gustav launchers close to the towers and fired HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) rounds at the circles marked out by the machine-guns, blowing neat holes. Intelligence reports had indicated that militants were present in the towers and basement in strength, and officials then decided not to send in the commandos without neutralising them.

Initially a novel suggestion seemed to find favour: to literally flush out the militants. Some officers suggested pouring streams of water through the holes to drive them out. But the plan was given up due to the fear that wired explosives possibly stored in the basements may go off due to short-circuiting and result in shaking the foundations of the temple itself.

Finally, the NSG collected some tear gas shells from the local police and lobbed them through the holes. As acrid, yellow fumes emanated from the towers, scores of commandos lay in wait for fleeing terrorists. None came out. They had fled earlier.

The commandos kept on firing at the towers to keep up the psychological pressure as the SAG raiding teams got into their black combat gear, including balaclava caps, and moved in to take over the new langar and Manji Sahib buildings. This is where the commandos suffered their only casualties.

Two jawans suffered splinter injuries while a junior commissioned officer was hit by an AK-47 burst in his thigh. All three were removed to the army hospital and are recovering. Then, after repeated probing attacks, the basement was breached with specialised explosives and grenades.

“We found no resistance,” admitted an officer, “but our orders were to shoot as much as possible to scare those within earshot elsewhere.” Shooting grew increasingly intense as the officers began the second front in their psychological offensive. They brought well-known Sikh saint, Baba Uttam Singh, to make repeated appeals to the militants to surrender.

Following him was Inspector General of Police (Border) Chaman Lal, his steady voice a curious blend of reassurance and ruthless resolve as he asked his men to hold fire and the militants to surrender in the same vein.

The first appeals inevitably brought the cries of “Khalistan Zindabad” and volleys of shots from the militants. A few women tried to surrender but were fired at by the militants. One was knocked into the holy sarovar from where her body was retrieved later.

Then on May 15 came the first success as 146 people – including 17 women and children – walked out, their arms raised. Among them were Surjit Singh Penta, wanted for several killings in Delhi, his brother and wife. “Is it all over?” a newsman asked Gill. “Bar the shouting, yes,” he said, his usually deadpan face stretched in a rare grin.

But the smiles were short-lived. The first shock came when Penta, recognised immediately by policemen and the press, swallowed cyanide. The police brass helplessly watched him gasp for his last breaths even as the NSG doctor tried desperately to save what could have been the police’s best source of information.

A greater shock followed. Enthused by the surrenders, the police extended the cease-fire and appealed to the rest inside the complex. Soon men came out of various rooms along the parikrama, their arms aloft and rifles slung on the shoulders, but then did a quick turn around and walked coolly into the main temple, taking advantage of the cease-fire.

Though the move into the temple had taken everyone by surprise, plans were being rewritten hastily. It was known that the terrorists would not be able to survive inside the temple for long without water and food. But there were bothersome questions: what if they blow up the temple? what if they commit mass suicide?

Some felt the need for a quick, surgical strike, but Gill decided to wait it out. The appeals for surrender on the following days were made by some key terrorists arrested on May 15. Gill requested the 150-odd newsmen thronging Amritsar for 24-hour coverage of the operation.

In case the terrorists blew up the temple and blamed the Government later, he wanted the world press as impartial witnesses. “Through you newsmen, we had people as umpires in this operation,” said a beaming Sanjit Kumar Sinha, Punjab’s public relations chief.

There was little response from the terrorists, except the audacity shown by some to use the cease-fire period to fill buckets of water from the sarovar and the futile attempt by two of them to bring in a sack and a pillow-case stuffed with chanas.

Made wiser, the security forces decided to announce no more cease-fires. Instead, they repeatedly asked the militants to surrender but said that the time for surrender and the route they should take out of the temple would be announced later.

“This was classical psy-ops (psychological operation) and every call for surrender turned the knife a little,” said an officer. Finally, when the timing was announced on the evening of May 18, several saffron patkas were waved from the temple’s windows and its 46 occupants walked out.

Except two militants who made a desperate dash to escape and were shot and two who bit cyanide, the rest came out tip-toeing past the hot, sole-scalding parikrama. Only a fortnight ago, they had promised to fight to the finish. But now they walked in defeat, leaving behind a trail of death, destruction and desecration of the kind the Sikhs’ holiest shrine had never seen in its 400 years.

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Source: IT

Image Courtesy: OneIndia

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