A team of Indian Army’s “Ghatak” commandos surreptitiously crossed the Line of Control (LOC) in the Rawlakot-Rakhchakri sector. This sector is actually of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir where Indian commandos entered to kill at least 3 Pakistani soldiers and injure a few others on Monday evening, leading to a surge in the ongoing border firings between India-Pakistan.
This small “tit-for-tat” operation has been carried out to avenge the killing of 4 Indian soldiers, which included Major Moharkar Prafulla A, by a Pakistani border action team in Rajouri sector of Jammu & Kashmir on last Saturday afternoon. A Major and 3 Indian soldiers were killed in the violation by the Pakistan Army along the LoC border at Rajouri in the Pir Panjal Valley. In that CFV violation, 4 persons were, Major M Prafulla Ambadas, Lance N Gurmail Singh, S Gurmeet Singh and S Pargat Singh — were from 2 Sikh Regiment and posted in Chingus area.
A small team of five army commandos of the “Ghatak” battalion did the job successfully. To avenge the killing of 4 soldiers in the last ceasefire violation by Pakistan, India started this operation.
A senior officer said, “It was a successful local tactical action taken by the local army commanders. It was actually a short distance raid of 200 to 300metres inside the Line of Control (LoC)”.
The Indian commandos targeted a group of Pakistani soldiers patrolling near a temporary post. An explosion was triggered by the commandos near the Pakistani patrol. Sources said some Pakistanis may have been killed in the blast. Then the rest were disoriented and taking advantage of that, a small unit of 5 people battalion-level commandos called “Ghatak” crossed about 200- 300 m across the LoC and shot the rest of the soldiers in the patrol.
A senior army officer said, “Jawabi karavaee’ (retaliatory action) was really required. It was a localized, selective targeting raid around 250-300 meters inside Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir by 5-6 Ghatak commandos of an infantry battalion. Pakistan also admitted 3 of its soldiers were killed in the operation, although intelligence reports suggest the toll can be higher”.
This tactical level operation, planned by the local commander and approved by the brigade commander, cannot be compared to the “surgical strikes” against terror launch pads in Pakistan- Occupied-Kashmir (PoK) by Indian Para-Special Forces in September 2016.
It came at about 6 pm on 25th December when a patrol from the 59 Baluch unit, under the Pak army’s Rawlakot brigade, was first “hit and left stunned” by an improvised explosive device placed by the “Ghatak” team around 200-300 meters across the LoC border.
The Indian Army has recorded more than eight hundred (800) ceasefire violations by the Pak army along the LoC line this year. the actual figure was just 228 in 2016, 152 in 2015), with fourteen soldiers and ten civilians being killed in them. The Army has lost more than fifteen soldiers during infiltration bids and “incidents” on the Line of Control (LoC), apart from thirty in intensive counter-insurgency operations which have killed more than 210 terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir this year.
