Covert Strike: Are We Capable?

An all-out war with Pakistan? Nor feasible. Diplomatic offensice to isolated the enemy? Recommended, but may not be effective. Surgical air strike? Runs the risk of escalating tension. Conver operations? Good idea, but how battle-ready are our special forces?

- Ajit K.Dubey and Namrata Biji Ahuja

At the height of the Kargil war in 1999, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee summoned the director-general (security) at the cabinet secretariat for a one-to-one, hush-hush meeting. He had one question for the officer: Did he have men who could carry out an operation near Pakistan’s nuclear facility in Kahuta, located in the Himalayan foothills in their part of Punjab?

Soon after the meeting, a band of 40 bearded men in plainclothes left their base at Sarsawa in Saharanpur district in Uttar Pradesh for a remote location in Jammu and Kashmir, the terrain of which was similar to that of Kahuta. The men were part of the Special Group, India’s most elite special forces unit that was so discreet that it was considered nonexistent. Their objective: train for a suicide mission. “For almost 45 days, the men were made to run up and down the hills for the mission, which did not happen ultimately,” an intelligence officer who monitored them from Delhi told THE WEEK.

Months later, in December, the same men were placed on standby again. Terrorists had hijacked the Indian Airlines flight 814 and forced it to land in Kandahar in Afghanistan. Thanks to the efforts of officers of the Research and Analysis Wing, Iran had agreed to provide five helicopters for a planned strike on the hijackers.