The toughest task for the troops during the 60-hour long anti-militancy operation in Anantnag’s Kokernag was retrieval of the bodies of the three slain officers, including a Colonel and Major from the Army and a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) from the J&K Police, amid enemy fire.
Official sources said DSP Himayun Bhat, posted with the police Special Operations Group (SOG) that is in charge of counter-insurgency operations, was alive and in touch with police officers for “six hours after being hit by bullets on Wednesday afternoon”. DSP Bhat also spoke to his family after he was hit. He was a father of a month-old son.
The Army’s attempt to shift the injured officers by helicopter failed due to the tough topography and the apparent threat of militant bullets hitting it. Sources said the bodies of the officers had fallen on steep slopes with thick vegetation. Physical evacuation was hindered by militants’ fire the whole day on Wednesday.
Preliminary reports suggested that the three officers came under indiscriminate fire from a cave or a crevice-like location, apparently a hideout in the upper reaches of the Gadool hill, which has a series of cliffs and valleys with sparse population nearby.
Officials said the body of the DSP, who kept calling for help during the day, was shifted by a special team on Wednesday evening. The operation was overseen by Director-General of Police Dilbag Singh and Additional Director-General of Police Vijay Kumar, who stationed themselves in Kokernag. However, the bodies of the two Army officers, Colonel Manpreet Singh and Major Aashish Dhonchak, could not be retrieved on Wednesday.
One official suggested the distance between the cave and the spot where the officers were hit is around 20 meters. Initial reports suggested that the Army officers bore the brunt of targeted militant fire from the hilltop, leaving them dead. It took more than 24 hours for the Army to lift the bodies of the officers from the gunfight site on Thursday.
Official sources said the three officers were scouting the Gadool hill since Tuesday following a tip off about the movement of two to three militants, who apparently fetched food items from the area.
Official sources said it remains a matter of investigation if the tip off was a trap, like in one of the operations in Rajouri in Pir Panjal in May this year, which left five soldiers dead.
The tactics adopted by the militants during the Anantnag operation were similar to the attacks carried out in the Pir Panjal valley in the past two years. The operation has again hinted at militants combining urban warfare with jungle warfare, making it more challenging for the security forces.
In the past three decades of militancy in Kashmir, it was urban warfare that dominated the scene rather than jungle warfare. However, in the past two years, jungle gunfights have turned into prolonged operations for the security forces. Several operations in Rajouri took weeks and months before they were called off following confrontation and firefight with hiding militants.
