![]() ![]() With phosphorous grenades borrowed from the SAS, they blinded the neighbourhood. For a week, a team of Indian SF soldiers in civvies surveyed the region and then, early one morning, teams of the 2 Paras in two borrowed US-made Chinook helicopters were inserted into the villages of the rebels. The unit landed there with almost no weapons and no transport to call its own.īut the British SAS (Special Air Services) with whom some Indian SF soldiers had trained was there. A desperate Indian Army despatched 90 soldiers of the 2 Para SF. Two companies (223 soldiers) of the Indian Army's 5/8 Gorkha Rifles on deployment in a UN peacekeeping mission were besieged for nearly two months by a militant outfit called the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone (RUFSL).įrom the sketchy information available, it is understood that negotiations had failed and the RUFSL had run over a Kenyan battalion on the road to the Indian post. Operation Khukri was in the embattled African country of Sierra Leone in the year 2000. Subin Balakrishnan, formerly of the 21st Para SF and now retired and settled in Mumbai, said that Operation Khukri was too recent for him to talk about. SF troops are so secretive that even years after retirement, they hate to talk of operations of the past. But it is the army Special Forces that are forever in operations. Little is known beyond key identifier of a Special Forces soldier - the maroon beret - and their naughty ditty: " Jab bura hai waqt, tab commando hai f****d".Įach of the three armed forces have their own special troops - the navy has the Marcos (Marine Commandos), the air force, the Garud - and counter-terror outfits like the National Security Guard are also recognised as a special force. So secretive is the culture of the SF that even episodes from conventional wars fought decades ago are still hushed-up. The Modi government has done so probably for the first time in a theatre of non-conventional war. Unlike the regular battalions of the army, they are unpublicised till a government chooses to announce a Special Forces operation. They are allocated to commands - especially the northern and eastern commands - "as per terrain and operational requirements", said a defence source. The military establishment now views SFs as a necessary component of what it calls "hybrid" warfare. They are mobile forces that have to strike multiple targets and move on - the "tip of the spear". The fundamental difference between infantry battalions and Para SF battalions is that the Para SFs are not tasked to hold ground. Unlike regular battalions that operate with sections, platoons and companies of troops, the SF units operate in small squads with five to six men in each. This is because the nature of SF operations are vastly different. The army currently has eight Special Forces battalions with about 650 troops each, much smaller than regular infantry battalions (900-1,100 troops each). ![]() Pawan Kumar was killed when militants captured a building at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute in Pampore near Srinagar. At the time he was with the 41 Rashtriya Rifles. Santosh Mahadik, formerly of the 21st Para SF was killed battling militants in Kupwara, north Kashmir. In June 2015, the 21st Para SF conducted operations along the Myanmar border after 18 soldiers were ambushed in Manipur by suspected NSCN(K) militants. This a decision that many who have served in the Special Forces find questionable. In just one year, the use of the army Para SF units has increased so much that the government, defence sources say, is planning to increase the number of such battalions. The cross-border action by the 9 Para SF and the 4 Para SF has brought the nature of these units into sharp relief. The 9 Para SF (Special Forces) crossed the Line of Control two nights ago, striking "terrorist launch pads" in hostile territory and giving the Narendra Modi government political relief and a few more inches of chest. His unit, the battalion he served in and for which he was awarded the Vir Chakra gallantry medal, is in Jammu and Kashmir. It is Mahalaya and the pujas can be smelt. Jaideep Sengupta, 54 years and now retired, is heading to the New Delhi railway station to catch a train to Calcutta. The Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) was fully committed to Sri Lanka in a tragic chapter in the history of India's armed forces. 3 assault troop was leading all of five men on a search-and-destroy mission on the Tunnukkai-Mankulem Road in the Jaffna Peninsula. The bullets and metal pierced the 26-year-old troop commander's stomach, thigh and chest.ĭespite being ambushed and bleeding profusely, he kept firing while also manoeuvring another team behind him. Jaideep Sengupta's men had already outflanked the militants. 30: By the time the bullets and shrapnel tore through him, Capt. ![]()
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