Military & Aerospace

The Indian Army: The first challenge - II
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Issue Book Excerpt: Indian Army After Independence | Date : 26 Jul , 2011

The efficiency of the airlift and the speed with which the Indian Army drove the invader from the Srinagar Valley prompted the Pakistanis to make the charge that India had prepared for the operation in advance. The charge is frivolous. No pre-emptive action was taken by India. The only man to think ahead and act was Major General Thimayya. As General Officer Commanding the East Punjab Area, he had been watching with concern the situation in Jammu & Kashmir. 50 (Para) Brigade was at the time at Gurdaspur, employed on internal security duties. Thimayya called its Commander, Brigadier (later Major General) Y.S. Paranjpe, and told him to go on a quick reconnaissance to Jammu as he foresaw a role for the brigade in the situation that was developing. Paranjpe set off with a small party in a couple of jeeps. There was no bridge at the time on the Ravi at Madhopur, and the road beyond was a dirt track. Crossing the river by ferry, this small party pushed on to Jammu. The arrival of paratroopers in their red berets created quite a stir in the town. People came out and surrounded the two jeeps. The Maharaja had just come out of Srinagar and he met Paranjpe in Jammu. Soon after Paranjpe got back to Headquarters, his brigade was ordered to move to Jammu.

The arrival of paratroopers in their red berets created quite a stir in the town. People came out and surrounded the two jeeps.

After the enemy had been temporarily cleared from the Srinagar Valley, the Indian High Command had to decide on the next move. The logical course was to go for Domel and then push on to Muzaffarabad. This would have secured the main ingress route into Kashmir from Pakistan. With the enemy in disarray, the task was not too difficult. But unfortunately, the situation in the Jammu province was fast deteriorating. The beleaguered garrisons of Mirpur, Kotli and Punch were clamouring for relief. Thousands of refugees had taken shelter in these towns; Punch alone was reported to have about 40,000 of them. General Kalwant Singh, who had by then moved JAK force Headquarters to Jammu, was in favour of going to the aid of the besieged garrisons so that the refugees could be evacuated. He accordingly prepared a plan and submitted it to Russell.

Kalwant Singh’s plan envisaged the move of two columns: one from Uri and the other from Jammu (see Fig. 3.3). The Jammu column, consisting of 50 (Para) Brigade Group, would move to Kotli and then to Mirpur by way of Akhnur, Beri Pattan, Naoshera and Jhangar, clearing the area of hostiles en route. He fixed 20 November as the deadline for the relief of Mirpur. The Uri column would comprise two battalions from 161 Brigade and some ancillaries. It would advance from Uri on 18 November, reach Punch the same day, and then push a small body further South to link up with 50 (Para) Brigade at Kotli. After reinforcing the garrison at Punch with one battalion, the rest of the column was to return to Uri. By this time, 268 Infantry Brigade had arrived in Jammu with two infantry battalions: 1 Madras and 1 Patiala. This brigade was to relieve 50 (Para) Brigade of its commitments on the line of communication.

The tribesmen ambushed it on the morning of 21 November, near milestone 7 out of Uri. 24 lorries, carrying the columns rations, ammunition and equipment were looted and thereafter burnt. Of the two platoons that formed the rearguard, 16 men were killed and 14 wounded.

Punch was the capital of a feudatory raja of the Kashmir Durbar. The town lay in a triangular valley at the confluence of the Betar Nulla and the Punch River. It was 48 kilometres from Uri and was connected to it by a fair weather road. About halfway from Uri, the road crossed the Pir Panjal range at the Haji Pir Pass (2,636 metres). This pass held the key to Punch from the North.

Kalwant Singh had forbidden any reconnaissance of the Uri-Punch road so as not to give away the surprise element for the link-up operation. Unfortunately, the road was in bad shape and the Uri column, starting two days behind schedule on 20 November, had to proceed at a very slow pace. Its rearguard was badly mauled. The tribesmen ambushed it on the morning of 21 November, near milestone 7 out of Uri. 24 lorries, carrying the column’s rations, ammunition and equipment were looted and thereafter burnt. Of the two platoons that formed the rearguard, 16 men were killed and 14 wounded.

An ironical misfortune awaited the main body of the column too. The state force garrison in Punch did not know of the column’s despatch from Uri. A detachment of the garrison was holding a wooden bridge on the Betar Nulla,16 kilometres North of the town, on the Uri road. On the night of 20 November, when the vanguard of the Uri column descended from the Haji Pir Pass, with vehicle lights on, the troops took it for a Pakistani force, destroyed the bridge and made for Punch. Brigadier Sen was in command of the column. With the bridge gone, all he could do was to send 1 (Para) Kumaon on foot into Punch with a few jeeps, which were lowered to the dry nulla bed with the help of winches.

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Sen knew that no link-up was now possible. He placed Lieutenant Colonel Pritam Singh, Commanding Officer of the Kumaonis as the Punch Garrison Commander. The State Forces Commander was senior to Pritam Singh, but he accepted this arrangement without complaint. Either way this command anomaly was solved by granting Pritam Singh the local rank of Brigadier. Pritam Singh and his garrison held out against all odds for exactly one year. Sen now hurried back to Uri to sort out the situation created by the ambush.

The Jammu column set out on 16 November. Reaching Beri Pattan that afternoon, it found its path blocked. The enemy had burnt the ferry there, and it took 24 hours to build a temporary causeway. When the advance was resumed, another obstacle on the far bank barred the way: a road-block with a large civilian lorry, full of dead Hindus and Sikhs. They had been butchered and their belongings looted.

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