My first blood

The year was 1997. I was Company Commander of one of the companies of our unit.

The location was one of the northern districts of Kashmir.

A little back ground on Kashmir.

During the partition of India both India and Pakistan wanted to have Jammu and Kashmir. Here the ruler was a Hindu king but the majority population were Muslims. At that time there were more than 500 princely states in India and they were given the option to either join India or Pakistan or stay independent. These princely states were very small in size most chose to merge with India and some went to Pakistan. The Pakistanis sent their armed local tribal population residing across Kashmir into Kashmir backed by Pakistani army to forcibly take over Kashmir. They expected that the local Muslim population will support them and they would easily capture Kashmir.

These invaders on entering Kashmir started large scale genocide of the Kashmiri people along with loot and rape. Srinagar is the most prominent city of Kashmir valley and if it was captured then Kashmir would have become part of Pakistan. The army of the Kashmiri king tried to resist the attack but was failing and these tribals were nearing Srinagar city. The Kashmiri king in order to protect the civilians decided to accede to India and India sent its forces and pushed back the tribals. But some part of Kashmir still stayed with Pakistan. That is why you will hear of Pakistan administered Kashmir and Indian administered Kashmir. Between these two is the Line of Control (LOC), where no international border exists.

During the 1971 war the line changed as per the occupation of the two forces and since then it has been a bone of contention between two countries.

You will hear a different version of it from a Pakistani, there point of view and interpretation. Things are more complicated politically, diplomatically and on ground.

Since 1980s there was a renewed effort by the Pakistanis to instigate trouble in Kashmir by playing the religious card. This resulted in again the killings of the minority Hindu population of Kashmir. The Muslim youth of Kashmir went to the training camps in Pakistan for armed training and returned with training arms ammunition and also Pakistani militants. They started threatening the local Hindus and also started attacking the security forces. In 1990 there was a mass exodus of Hindu population from Kashmir valley to the Hindu dominated areas of Jammu and even till New Delhi.

The incident

I was in one of the location on the line of control. The area is mountainous and deeply forested with snow fall in winter. Exchange of small arms fire and artillery fire is common on the line of control which results in frequent injury and death of both soldiers and civilians on both sides of the line. But physical crossing of this line is not done by the regular troops except in extreme cases of raids. There were regular attempts by Pakistanis to sneak in militants inside Kashmir under cover of heavy firing.

It was in the month of August and I was directed to move from one company to another company to relieve that officer who was to proceed on leave. I was on one of the posts at around 10,000 feet and I had to go to a post that was at about 12,000 feet. The next day I started to go towards the new post along with 2 guards. The posts are called forward defended locality (FDL). It had 1500 feet of straight steep climb which was quite tiring even in young age.

This FDL had a tea point, it is a place which is at two third distance from below where the troops used to bring tea and some snacks for the troops climbing up. It was a drizzling day with fog and low visibility, ideal for sneaking in militants. We had to climb along a ridge line and there were only scrubs and undergrowth's on both sides of the ridge, trees don’t grow at this altitude. The undergrowth's were dense due to rainy season and were about 8 to 10 feet height.

We reached the tea point at around 10 AM and by then troops from above had come with tea and snacks. We were sitting and resting and enjoying the much needed rest. Suddenly one of the troops noticed some movement in the undergrowth about 80 meters from the ridge line. As soon he alerted all of us there was a barrage of AK 47 fire on us, and all hell broke loose. The militants had opened fire on us as they understood that they have been detected. It may be noted that the militants avoid engaging troops on the LOC unless detected because there main role is after they enter deep inside our territory. We immediately took position and started firing back inside the undergrowth. From the fire we could make out there were about 4-5 militants at least.

In the mean while troops from the higher FDL rushed in and troops from other nearby FDLs were directed to cut off the escape routes and slowly close in. This firing continued for sometime. We were basically firing in the general direction from which the fire was coming as the militants were actually not visible in the dense foliage, so we decided to enter it cautiously to make the kill.

With additional reinforcements we made many 2 member buddies to cover each other while entering the dense undergrowth. From the idea of the fire we were receiving we made a mental note of 4-5 places from where we were receiving fire and planned our move accordingly. In the next two hours it was a close quarter battle and we were able to eliminate all except the last one.

This would be my kill. I and the militant were about 25 meters apart and both were invisible to each other. The slope was steep and due to the drizzle and the twisted branches, the ground was slippery. I was on the upper side of the slope going downwards. I asked my buddy to cover me from a suitable location and I started closing in on the direction of fire. Bullets were going all around me with the occasional grenade, same was with him also. Now I was around 15 meters from him and we were firing at each other.

Then there was a pause in the fire from his side. I could make out the first click sound, the one that of opening the empty magazine from the AK. Magazine is an attachment that holds the bullets. There was no fire from his side and the sound gave me a better judgement of the location. Still I could not actually see him but I could now take a better aim. Instead of taking the normal aim that is through the back sight and front sight of the weapon, I decided to fire from the hip position. I waited for the sound of fitting in the new filled magazine on his rifle and voile I heard the click. At that instant moment I fired a burst from my hip position and I could clearly hear the thud of a person falling down and a low shrill. I knew I got him and I was happy.

This was my first drawing of blood and my first kill after joining the service.

A day well lived, to see the next day.