How Niranjan died :- The soldiers have killed two terrorists in same spot and as a standard procedure the body has to be inspected thoroughly ( even inserting probes in to their chest cavity and stomach) by the NSG explosive disposal squad, which is headed by Niranjan. Normally terrorists hides explosives in their body which is meant for inflicting further damage.

Nirajan approached the first body and cleared that of for handling as it did not have any hidden explosives.

The solders dragged the second body a little towards Niranjan for him to inspect and clear. But the second body has a chest belt based explosives hidden, which gets triggered once the belf is disturbed. Niranjan quikly realized that it got activated and screamed the solders to take cover.

He then rolled over to the dead body, lifted the body in air and was trying to through it away. By then explosion got triggered and ruptured our national hero’s both hands, chest cavity, one side of face and eye.

The reason why he was not wearing protective gear was that,it was a major combing operation by walk in a wast 1500 acres forest type land. The bomb disposal gears are so heavy with all that protective gears and non flexible. It is impossible for an NSG commando to have that put on in a live operation underway in a terrain like that.

I saltute the fallen spirit and we all indian say, you will live through us…. your every drop of blood will continue to flow through us… You, our immortal hero… we salute you !!!

Deploying NSG instead of Army was a mistake: experts

Army and security circles are bewildered and angry over the way the government kept the Army from the Pathankot terror hunt, especially in the early phase, when Army troops were available in thousands close by. Instead of pressing Army units into immediate action, precious time was lost in sending a few dozen NSG commandos from New Delhi.

“None of us can believe what they did. We have two infantry divisions and two armoured brigades in the vicinity. We have at least three corps headquarters in a couple of hours’ drive, and the Northern Army headquarters too. All of those troops are seasoned in carrying out counter-terror operations,” said a serving Brigadier posted close to Pathankot. “Instead, they wasted time to send a few dozen NSG commandos to the base?”

Lieutenant-General Prakash Katoch, a veteran para-commando and leading authority on special forces operations in India, said: “NSG is required for a specific target, it cannot tackle an area target.” He said that in a place such as the Pathankot airbase, the perimeter had to be secured first and combing operations to hunt down terrorists should have been initiated. “The Army is the best for that,” he said.

“There is no harm in sending the NSG, but then you should have a clear command and control. You cannot shove in the BSF, NSG, Army, etc, just like that. Was there a command and control there?” Gen. Katoch said.

General V.P. Malik, former Army chief, told The Hindu: “I don’t know if the NSG was the right one. They came from Delhi. It should be given to a local agency which knows the place.”

Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali H.Major said: “Garuds were raised for a different mandate for special Air Force tasks and not anti-terror operations. The DSC personnel are basically re-employed people.”

A serving Army officer said that the Army with its 10 Special Forces units, and at least the one based in Udhampur, would have been in Pathankot in a couple of hours. “We practise all the time for such operations,” he said. “Instead, you send NSG commandos in the night. Who told them that they could defend the 24 sqkm of the base with 160 commandos?”

A senior serving officer said if the government had followed the management principle of “functional foremanship” which advocates the right man for the right job, it would have saved precious lives and ensured quick elimination of terrorists.

“It was not the job of the NSG or the Garuds. It is the job of the infantry,” he told The Hindu. The local Army unit conducts a recce of the entire airbase every six months, but they were not allowed to get in when the situation came, he said.

Lt.Gen. Vinod Bhatia, former Director-General of Military Operations, told The Hindu: “The operation was not handled the way it should have been. The fact is, it has gone on for too long. If the Army was called in, they could have a better cordon as they have more strength. There was no unity of command. There has to be a single commander given the wherewithal and authority.”

“The complete infantry of the Indian Army has been fighting counter insurgency for decades,” another officer noted, adding, “This could have been handled much better with fewer casualties.” “How many times has the government airlifted the NSG for operations in the Valley? The infantry has been fighting for a long time and has been doing a good job,” he said.

Pathankot attack: Army defends NSG deployment at airbase

Lt Gen Singh defended the NSG deployment and sought to convey that the decision was not a solo flight by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval. –

The Western Command’s Lt General KJ Singh on Wednesday said the Pathankot operation shows “excellent synergy” among armed forces following criticism over the deployment of the National Security Guard (NSG). “I say that because all our strategic air assets are safe, not harmed, not touched,” he added. The NSG was reportedly called in to prevent and deal with hostage situations.

SEEKING to counter the criticism of the NSG-led operation against the terrorist infiltration and attack at Pathankot airbase, the GOC-in-C, Western Command, Lt Gen K J Singh Wednesday called the operation a “complete success” and said it was an example of the “excellent synergy” among the forces. A day after the operation ended with questions about the necessity of deploying the NSG, and confusion in the command structure during the operation due to presence of multiple agencies, Singh said “Operation Dhangu Suraksha” (Dhangu is the name of the village where the airbase and other defence facilities are located) had been a “complete success. I say that because all our strategic air assets are safe, not harmed, not touched. The airbase remained operational throughout this operation. That means sorties that were meant to be launched for surveillance, communication, evacuation — all could be launched”. –

Lt Gen Singh defended the NSG deployment and sought to convey that the decision was not a solo flight by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval. “Deployment of NSG was a joint decision taken at an appropriate level, which included the service chiefs. Because there were strategic assets located here, and there could have been a hostage situation, NSG is specially trained for that. It is a success of this operation that airbase was operational. God forbid, if the airbase had not been operational, how would have we brought the NSG there? That was the main reason that the NSG was inducted prior to the operation to prevent and tackle the hostage situation”. Lt Gen K J Singh admitted that the first alert about possible terrorist infiltration had come during a joint meeting of law and security enforcement agencies on December 30 from the Joint Director, Intelligence Bureau. Replying to the queries pertaining to over-90 hours taken to kill the terrorists, Lt Gen Singh said, “You need to use the stop-watch method here. The total point of contact with the terrorists was about 10-11 hours. Rest of the time was utilised by us for the combing and sanitisation of the area”

Bhanu P Lohumi,Tribune News Service,Shimla, February 7

Shimla and its surrounding areas experienced the season’s first heavy snowfall today. It has been snowing in the tribal areas and other hills since morning.The state capital received 18 cm of snow. Showers accompanied by strong winds lashed the city in the morning while it started snowing towards the evening.Vehicular movement towards upper Shimla remained affected as the snow blocked the Hindustan-Tibet National Highway, state highways and link roads in the interiors.Rampur-bound buses were diverted through Basantpur and Kingal as the national highway was blocked at Fagu, Kufri and Narkanda. The Shimla-Rohroo and Shimla Chopal roads were also blocked.Shimla, donning a white mantle, looked fascinating. The area between Kufri and Fagu experienced 35 cm of snow.The Dhauladhar Range in Kangra district received less than 45 to 50 cm of snow while Rohtang, Kunzam, Saach and Chansel Passes have been receiving continuous snowfall since morning.Mercury dropped from 16 degree Celsius to 5.2 degree Celsius in Shimla, which experienced the warmest day on February 5, with the maximum temperature soaring to 21.8 degree Celsius. Keylong and Kalpa received 35 cm and 30 cm of snow.Power connections have been snapped in Lahaul due to heavy snowfall.Dharamsala received 50 mm rain, Manali 30 mm, Chamba, Sundernagar and Kalatop 23 mm each, Bhuntar and Bajaura 20 mm, Gaggal 19 mm, Jogindernagar 17 mm, Sarkaghat 15 mm and Baijnath 13 mm.The Met Department has predicted rain and snow in the higher hills on February 8, 9 and rain and snow in low, mid and high hills from February 10 to 13. Director of the department Manmohan Singh said the rain deficit of the season was now 70 per cent.Snow brings cheers to residents, tourists

After every forward movement in India-Pakistan relations, terrorist acts sabotage the process. The logical reason for not cancelling the talks is that we do not have any feasible alternative. There is a strong sentiment in our country that Pakistan must pay a price for such attacks.

.New Delhi, Jan 4 (PTI) The government has ordered a security audit of all critical defence installations in the country in the wake of the terror attack on the strategic Pathankot air base.

Top Defence sources said the idea of the audit is to identify shortcomings in the security system and plug them.

“The defence ministry has ordered a security audit of all defence installation, to be completed quickly, so that weaknesses can be found out and plugged,” the sources said.

In the case of the Pathankot attack, it is believed that the terrorists had entered the base through an opening in the nearly 25 km-long perimeter wall of the base.

Sources said the terrorists entered the base, one of the largest of the IAF spread over about 2000 acres, through a gap in the perimeter wall which is heavily forested.

Meanwhile, the government is also looking at how the security of the international border in Punjab can be intensified further. The border is guarded by the BSF but top security officials are concerned about two infiltrations by the militants in the last six months from the same area.

“The area has a lot of river lines and it is not easy to plug all the holes there. However, it would be seen that the security is beefed up there,” the sources said.

Following the terrorist attack at the Pathankot air base, the Defence Ministry has reportedly ordered for a security audit of all defence installations in the country to plug shortcomings in the security system. Meanwhile, the government is also reportedly working to improve the security at Punjab international border which has seen two militant infiltrations in the last six months

Ravi Dhaliwal,Tribune News Service,Pathankot, February 2

The Army nabbed a labourer, Irshad Ahmed, working inside the Mamoon cantonment on charges of spying for Pakistan. He was handed over to the Punjab Police. After interrogation by the police and intelligence agencies, a case under the Officials Secret Act was filed against him.A top official said that for the past several days, agencies had been keeping a watch on his activities.They were alerted by intelligence sources in New Delhi last evening that he had been regularly making calls to Pakistan. RK Bakshi, Pathankot SSP, confirmed Ahmed’s arrest.Investigators are trying to ascertain if Ahmed had provided logistic help to the six terrorists who entered the Pathankot air base on January 2. An officer said Ahmed was an ISI agent who collected “sensitive information on Indian military bases for his handler Sajjad.” Intelligence officials have recovered photos of military installations from Ahmed’s cellphone. Sajjad, who was recently arrested in Jammu, will now be questioned on the basis of Ahmed’s confessions.The Pathankot Cantonment is one of the biggest and most sensitive military bases of the Indian Army. Likewise, the Air Force station located nearby, has sophisticated fighter planes, helicopters and high-end assets.

Survivor says terrorists spoke of avenging Afzal Guru’s death

Because the NDA government is remarkably media-savvy and because the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, is an old hand at manipulating mediapersons, the terror attack at Pathankot Air Force Base on Saturday was reported and portrayed in an unusually un-hawkish tone. Some of the television channels, which are otherwise notorious for venomously ratcheting up anti-Pakistan rhetoric, allowed themselves to pander to the official line. The line was that the security forces were doing a clinical,  professional job and the government was in control of the situation. The Modi government obviously wanted to protect itself from any perception of being ‘soft on terror.’Given the fact that the attack had taken place at an Air Force base and given the fact that the security forces had already anticipated the murderous move because the terrorists had shown their hand when they earlier waylaid an SP-rank officer of the Punjab Police, no one was in any doubt as to how the drama would unfold.Yet, it was good to see the television channels playing it responsibly. Most of our channels are deeply embedded in the defence establishment, which has consistently fed them an anti-Pakistan diet. But now that Mr Narendra Modi himself had been constrained to seek rapprochement with Pakistan, our hawkish media is a confused lot. The Pathankot attack has taken place within eight days of Prime Minister Modi’s much talked about stopover in Lahore. While it will be interesting to see how in the days to come the Modi establishment – and its big brother, the Nagpur-based parivar – would try to rationalise the Lahore peace process, the fact of the matter is that people in India as also in Pakistan want peace. Neither the politicians nor the media can ignore this reality.  Last Sunday at a lunch, I happened to overhear a conversation between a former civil servant and a businessman on how in the mid-1970s, they had worked together to set up an industrial project. There was a tinge of regret that that creative juggalbundi between the bureaucracy and business enterprise was no longer working. I joined the conversation in an attempt to understand why industrialisation was no longer a subject of political discourse.Instead, there seems to be a pointless competition among the political parties as to who can stage a bigger rally than the other. Political parties are threatening to convert the coming January 14 traditional Maghi Mela in Muktsar into a political mela. No one in Punjab seems to be worried about this simple fact of life: who will create new jobs? Not all youth can migrate to Canada. Opportunities for gainful employment have to be created here on the ground. I am told that the Deputy Chief Minister has been very industriously choreographing events where industrialists of all hues and reputations come and with much fanfare sign “MoUs” and then everyone goes back to whatever they do — other than setting up job-creating units. It has been nearly two decades that the back of militancy was broken and yet Punjab has not been able to re-discover that old work culture that once characterised the “industrious Punjabi”.The Khalistan movement and its sub-culture of violence and gun had sapped the administrative and political vitality. The bureaucracy remained preoccupied with the “law and order” idiom and never really recovered its earlier enthusiasm for industrialisation. The political leadership has been only too happy to cite “militancy” as the excuse for the state’s backwardness. The Centre has been the favourite fall guy for refusing to write off the state’s ‘debts.’ In the past 10 years, the state has been flirting with bankruptcy. Yet, the political priorities remain focused on winning the next election. That is the politician’s karma. But, then, his dharma is also to help create prosperity in the state. The bitterness among the two principal political formations – the Congress and the Akali Dal – has spawned suspicion and distrust. Whatever projects and policies a government puts in place are most likely to be jettisoned by the successive government – because of a self-serving assumption that the previous government/chief minister must have taken a hefty “cut”. Now the AAP people have been flexing their muscle and they too can be expected to encourage further this culture of suspicion. Even if there is a “non-corrupt” government and the most “honest”chief minister, jobs, productivity, employment would not get automatically generated. Without vision, good intentions would not suffice to generate and re-invigorate the gasping small and medium industries, leave alone setting up of large-scale industry. The state needs a new political idiom with job-creating industrialisation at its centre. All Punjab leaders, headed by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, seem to be smarting under the notion that private enterprise was a nuisance, and that the state government was doing the businessmen a favour by letting them do their business. The political leadership in the state seems to be oblivious of the 1991 paradigm shift.In 2016, Punjab would be fully obsessed with electoral calculations and manoeuverings. No political leader has the stature and the self-assurance to talk of a long-term vision for the state. Five months ago, I was told by my doctors that my blood sugar level was rather alarming and something needed to be done about it. A few days back, I fortuitously met “Dr” Harmohan Dhawan, who told me that he ran a “nature cure” clinic and claimed that it was possible to get the better of this diabetic business without taking recourse to any of those fancy “insulins.”  On an impulse, I decided to seek “Dr” Dhawan’s advice. He immediately and willingly took me under his care and put me on an almost pain-free regimen. In essence, he put me on a diet that simply involved eating lots and lots of vegetables and fruits. In addition, he insisted on a daily 45-minute brisk physical activity, including walking/yoga. And, I have no hesitation in acknowledging that within a month, there was a dramatic improvement in my blood sugar count. Now my count is better than it has been in years. So much so, that over this preceding festive season, I could indulge myself in cakes and halwa (of course, within limits.) “Dr” Dhawan insists that he is not a “proper doctor”, but I always tell him that anyone who can help me bring my sugar level down – that too without putting chemicals in my body—qualifies for the salutation. He misses no opportunity to talk in public about disproportionately huge benefits derived from making minor adjustments in lifestyle. His hope is that one day his treatments and teachings would become a mass movement, and would help India become a healthy society.A few days ago, I received a communication from a reader, Satwant Singh, who described himself as a “sixty-six-year-old Chandigarh-based artist, designer, cartoonist and poet and above all, a hardcore Tribune admirer.” By way of greetings for the new year, he was kind enough to send a poem and a cartoon, with a request that it be shared with fellow-readers. Who can ignore a hardcore Tribune reader!

The Selfie Sarkar

Ajj kal apne desh ke mahaul kiTabiyat kuchh nasaaz chal rahi hai. Kya bolein, kya na bolein, Is par bhi taqraar chal rahi hai.

Kya khayein, kya pahne,

Is par bhi hahakaar chal rahi hai.Kaun desh bhakt, kaun desh drohi,Iski bhi parhtal chal rahi hai.Kaun yahan rahein, kaun yahan se jayein,Is par bhi takraav chal rahi hai.Danishwaron ke dimaag ki battian bhujhane par

Cheekho pukar chalrahi hai.

Har taraf urh rahe hain zehreeley dank,Nafraton ki car beraftaar chal rahi hai.Taanashahi ki band bajaa baraat chal rahi hai.Jumlon ki bahaar chal rahi hai.Kyunki Selfie ki Sarkaar chal rahi hai!Thank you, Satwant Singh ji. Coffee?

kaffeeklatsch@tribuneindia.com

Major General KV Krishna Rao

Tribune News Service,New Delhi, January 30

Former Army Chief Major General KV Krishna Rao, who played a key role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, died today in New Delhi. He was 92. During the 1971 war, General Rao, who was heading the 8 mountain division then, and Lt Gen Sagat Singh, who was leading the 4 Corps, launched the first-ever helicopter-borne launch of troops in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. *Obituary: He put down insurgency in Northeast, J-KFor the job, General Rao had handpicked troops of the 4/5 Gorkha Rifles (the battalion of the current Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag). On December 6, General Rao’s division was tasked to capture Sylhet in the north-eastern part of that country. Six brigades of the Pakistan Army had fortified the town. The plan to send its own troops onboard helicopters was audacious. However, in a 12-hour operation using Mi-4 helicopters of the Indian Air Force, a full brigade of the Army had been moved across the Surma river. The troops had held back Pakistanis who were forced to surrender and that move allowed the other Indian troops to capture Dacca, the then name of Dhaka, from the eastern flank.During his tenure as the Army Chief from June 1, 1981, to July 1983, General Rao conceptualised to fortify defences in Arunachal Pradesh fearing Chinese incursions, a plan that was finally put in place under “Operation Falcon” in 1986 by General K Sundarji.General Rao was commissioned into the Army in August 1942. He had served in Burma, North West Frontier and Baluchistan during the Second World War. He was Chairman of the expert committee constituted by the government on Re-organisation and Modernisation for Defence of the country. He was the Western Army Commander during 1979-81.He was appointed the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, when a proxy war developed in the state and reached its peak. Barring a three-year break, he was the Jammu and Kashmir Governor till May 1998. In this capacity, he was instrumental in restoring peace and democracy in the insurgency-riven state. In a condolence message, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said: “The country has lost one of its best known military leaders.” Army Chief General Suhag also expressed deep condolences on General Rao’s demise.

Former Army chief Krishna Rao dead