Military Digest: When farmers of Punjab thrashed and captured Pakistan’s elite commandos

According to a detailed account of this ill-planned and ill-executed operation by Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail (retd) of the Pakistan Air Force, the idea germinated from Air Marshal Asghar Khan the then chief of air staff of the PAF in July 1965. Asghar Khan demitted the office shortly before the war broke out but his successor, Air Marshal Nur Khan, continued with the plan.

A PAF team was tasked to liaise with Col Seyyed Ghaffar Mehdi, commander in chief of the Special Service Group (SSG). Kaiser Tufail notes that according to Col Mehdi, “nothing appreciable was achieved as the demands made by the PAF were clearly beyond the operational capability of our troops”.

“A formal presentation was made to the PAF C-in-C by Col Mehdi (alongside his GSO-2 Ops, Major Ehsan-ul-Haq Dar) in July at the Para Training School (PTS) in Peshawar, and the SSG’s point of view was explained. Two important points were highlighted:

a) A daring operation of this nature could only succeed if both the strategic and tactical surprise was with the attacker. The blow against the Indian bases, therefore, had to be struck as a first-ever signal of war, the implication being that if the war had been going on for some time and enemy airbase defences were in a state of alert, the chances of success of such commando operations using Second World War methods were remote.

b) An accurate and up-to-date analysis of the target, its characteristics, size, shape and dimensions of its defences, and peculiarities of the general environments in which the target existed, had to be provided to the SSG by PAF/GHQ,” wrote Tufail.

The exfiltration of the para-commandos after the mission was not well thought about.

“Landing transport aircraft on an airfield that was expected to be on full alert after the attack was, in the least, a fanciful idea. As for helicopters, neither Pak Army, nor the PAF had troop transport versions that could evacuate a large number of commandos from enemy territory,” notes Tufail.

Three teams, each of 60 commandos including three officers, were airdropped by three C-130s. Each team was to have one wireless set so as to be able to keep the C-130s informed of its progress. Individual commandos were provided with two days’ rations (five meethi rotis each) and Rs 400 in Indian currency, in addition to personal weapons, explosives, grenades, etc.

Eventually, the raids were mounted in the early hours of September 7 with 64 SSG commandos dropped near the Pathankot airbase, 55 commandos near Adampur and 63 at Halwara.

The Pathankot batch landed several kilometres away from the airfield and by the time they regrouped and started marching towards their objective, the fields surrounding the airbase were active with farmers who spotted them and raised an alarm. Leading to capture of around 45 commandos and the deaths of four. Many slipped away towards Kangra hills and then managed to exfiltrate after resting there in ravines.

In Adampur, the Pakistanis dropped right in the middle of a village where the villagers caught hold of many and gave them a severe beating before capturing them. An alarm was raised and Punjab Police teams rushed to the spot to round off the commandos, of whom 42 were captured, 12 shot dead and one escaped.

A similar event happened in Halwara, where the drop took place adjacent to a village and where the commandos encountered highly charged villagers who overpowered them. A subsequent firefight also took place with Punjab Police personnel, resulting in four Pakistani commandos getting killed, 53 captured and six managing to escape.

Thanks to the alert Punjab farmers and the rapid response of Punjab Police, the consolidated losses from a total of 182 commandos were—140 captured, 20 killed and 22 escaped.

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