Line of Control [Kashmir]

Chapter 1: The sophistication of uncomplicated thinking
Day & Date: 0700 hrs, 11 November, 2009.
Location: Kala Pathhar (COMMAND BUNKER)Poonch Sector, Jammu & Kashmir (Operation Rakshak)
Post: Kopra Ridge (Main), Line of Control, 9, 500 ft a.s.l.
It was a misty and cold morning, not that Kashmir had offered me anything else, and I snuggled deeper inside my sleeping bag. I had, just a few minutes back, given an all OK report to Major RK Anuj, the Adjutant of 17 Kumaon. I had told him that all was well. Well, not exactly. The adjutant and I had our little joke going. I would say, “All quiet on the western front” and he would grunt. This morning he insisted on talking and was rather chirpy. Brigade Headquarters was full of paper tigers. The Brigade Commander was biased. Being a Gurkha officer, the GR units never got ROP duty. DSSC should be shut down; it was producing Rommels and Guderians with great powers of hallucination etc etc. I had heard this all before and mumbled a reply in agreement. It never does well to put off your adjutant. The last time had seen me on a 7 day LRP over the Pir Panjal mountain ranges, and a re-play did not seem like a great idea. Suddenly, acute matters of national security demanded his attention; the BM wanted 7 boys for working duty and the Adjutant ran to comply.Sleep was like a drug and I was drifting back to la-la land. I was back to the ideal world......the canteen was a cafeteria, the hostel was "residence" and even the mere function of asking someone to pass the chapattis was an cool "zap the chaps" or if you were a seventies degenerate, "roll the discs". Aah.....the pleasant burdens of Stephania. Suddenly, a loud rap on the bunker door jolted me back to reality. “Ram, Ram sahib”, Subedar Bhim Singh’s voice rang out and I cursed my luck. This was the last thing I wanted early in the morning. To have such a psycho as a platoon commander was in itself a huge problem. I had to literally beg the commanding officer not to sign Bhim Singh’s AFMSF-10, not once but twice. Bhim was nature’s bad boy. He was an “unfit JCO”. He was in the infantry, thought like a Para Commando and executed like a nurse. Once an NCO “ran amok” in C Company. The NCO was drunk and he chased Bhim Singh all over the unit lines with a khukri, before he was caught, put in QG and charge sheeted. Good friend Bhim returned the favor 2 years later, emulating the act to the T. If there was something called JLQs’ (JCO like qualities), they had certainly given Bhim the go by. 17 Kumaon knew for a fact that in such a sensitive area, only Bhim stood between the CO and a Higher Command nomination. Bhim had the CO a very worried man.I asked him to sit on a camp stool, while Ramesh Chandra, my faithful sahayak of two years, tried to light up the bukhari. He soon got a good fire going and proceeded to pour a cup of tea for both of us.“Sahib, we have lost 3 jawans in the last 2 months and the morale of the troops is not good”, he said. For the uninitiated, a Kumaoni will never come straight to the point. Whatever it is, it has to sound like a good story.“Yes, Bhim Sahib. I know that. What are you trying to say?” I asked.“Sahib, there is a pattern to this whole thing”, he said.Jesus, I thought. There he goes again. He will be gone in minutes, leaving me to nurse a migraine for the whole day.He continued, “All three men were killed between 0300-0400 hrs. All three belonged to the last patrol of the night. All three were surprised by infiltrating militants.”I sat up uneasily. Bhim Singh was right. How had I missed this? But, couldn’t it just be co-incidence? What was the proof of a pattern? Not wanting to disturb his flow, I nodded gravely to him. Now he had my full attention.“Someone is helping them from inside”, he delivered his punch line.“What? Do you mean one of our men………. ” I said.“No, no Sahib. How can you even think that one of our boys could do something like this? We have given this great army two PVCs and three Chiefs………….” he started. I knew where this monologue was heading. Not wanting another dose of paltan ki izzat……..I waved for him to continue.“I have information that it is none other than Haji Abdullah, the maulvi. He has often requested our 0300 hrs patrol to help him get to the pir baba ki mazar to put a 200 watt bulb. That is the signal to the Pakistani post that all is clear and they should begin infiltration”, he finished.5 km into Indian territory from the Line of Control is a black out zone at night. No one is allowed to switch on lights inside their homes and if they do, they have to cover the windows with black cloth or paper so that nothing is visible from outside. This is just to make the enemy Arty OP work harder for his salary. What Bhim was trying to say was that the CO had given permission to the 78 year-old Maulvi on religious grounds, to light a bulb at the Pir baba site. This was the only bulb which was allowed to be lit in the whole area of 5 km. The maulvi, once a week, feigning illness or bad memory, would actually request our jawans to guide/ escort him to the Pir Baba. Then the maulvi would put the bulb in the socket. In the pitch dark valley, the bulb would shine like a torch. It was the signal to the Pak post that the last Indian patrol of the night had left. Since the patrols only patrolled the gaps between the ambush sites, it was a cakewalk for the militants.It was certainly a plausible theory. Yes, our boys had died only on the nights the maulvi had requested for our help in putting the bulb on the mazar. But much of this was conjecture. Who would buy such a fantastic argument? But then, this was Kashmir. The normal rules of engagement (and logic) certainly did not apply.“How did you come across all this? How could you figure out?” I asked Bhim.Bhim smiled at me, showing a single row of badly stained and rotting teeth and said, “Ranjan told me”.Ranjan was our company masalchi (cook’s helper). An avid reader of cheap Bengali pulp fiction, he knew about the vital statistics of film heroines as thoroughly as he knew which Lt. Gen. would become Army Commander. Ranjan was a man in the know of things.Bhim’s logic had me stumped. How could I go to the CO with this story? And the CO had only last snowfall given the maulvi Rs.10, 000/- from the unit intelligence fund, to repair the masjid wall which had fallen due to heavy snow. The CO had obviously planned it as a brilliant “hearts and minds” campaign.I dismissed Bhim and set thinking. What were the loopholes in Bhim’s logic? The facts certainly seemed to jell. But without the CO's sanction, what could I do? What should I do? I was itching to get the person who had killed my men. Was I over-reacting? A million thoughts passed through my head. My mind was in turmoil and I felt lost. Ranjan would talk. My men would know that I was given the information and failed to act; infantrymen always thought in black and white. You were either “Dost” or “Dushman”. You were to be either embraced or killed. And, my men would not judge the maulvi worthy of embracing.What stopped me from contemplating any action was the credibility Bhim had in the unit. He was a shifty eyed, 5’4 ft guy with kohl lined eyes. He was an alcoholic. He had a few black ink entries against his name. When he spoke in anger, he frothed at the mouth and his eyes spun in their sockets. He was right out of a comic book. And, he was a Services boxer. I guess even his own mother hated him.Lt. Thomas, my company 2-i-C was a youngster with 4 months of service. He literally lived with the men. I had seen him translating “Platoon Leader” for the men, though his regimental spirit took a nosedive when he was requested by the CHM to translate a Playboy story. Could I trust Thomas? No, I decided. He was much too young for paltan politics. One call from the Adjutant would have him on his knees.When I took my decision, my own calm surprised me. It was as if the fact was always at the back of my mind, unable to come forth. I could not cross check the facts with a third party. I could not go to my CO. I could not have another death in the company. My mind was made up. Mentally, I had already passed orders for the execution of Haji Abdullah.I started preparing for the kill.