Gears gnashing, the olive green Maruti Gypsy groaned up the mountainous track from Gingle village in Kashmir’s Uri sector. Mohammad Nazir, our Border Security Force (BSF) driver, was at the wheel which he handled with deft, powerful wrists.
In the rear, two jawans in olive green battle fatigues and armed with Beretta automatic rifles and a young Kashmiri porter shared the cramped space occupied by an assortment of cartons and sacks containing provisions – vegetables, cooking oil, dal, tinned meat and live poultry, among other things. Every trip up means sending out as much provisions for the “boys” who would soon be faced with another harsh winter – three to four feet of snow and icy winds.
We were off to B post at the top of a hill feature 15 km as the crow flies from the Line of Control which, over the past month-and-a-half has turned ‘red hot’ and suddenly come alive after the 18 September terror strike at the army’s Uri brigade headquarters followed by the special forces’ 'surgical strike' on terrorist infrastructures across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
The lead Gypsy, occupied by our guide and host, Deputy Commandant Dihe Peter (from the Mohura camp), a cheerful Manipuri who cradled his AK-47 rifle on his lap, rolled and jumped its way up the treacherous hairpin bends of the dangerous path.
It took a 30-minute bumpy ride over the dirt-and-rock path before we reached B outpost – a flat patch of land with three brick huts, machine gun nests, a couple of bunkers and a platoon of BSF troops armed with AK-47 rifles and Israeli and INSAS sub-machine guns.
Company Commander Kundan, from Patna, smartly saluted Peter, before his face broke into a grin as he shook hands and welcomed us at B to the west of which lay even higher peaks. Lowering the mean-looking AK-47 rifle, Kundan thrust a field binocular in my hands and pointed to a ‘V’ shaped feature in the distant mountain range, saying:
That is a terrorist infiltration route. A few kilometres below that feature you will notice a cluster of huts which make up an outpost of the 10th Dogra regiment.
As I scanned the imposing mountain peaks of the Pir Panjal range with the binocular, more huts and communication towers sprang up on the light purple lenses.
Poet or a Painter?
As he sank into a chair with his steady gaze scanning the peaks opposite us, Peter said:
It is not unusual that in the night we hear reports of gunfire on the LoC. The Pakistanis fire at our army posts. Our soldiers respond. They have to. Sometimes it is the other way round. And that is life amidst the deceptively calm surroundings of the outpost, which could turn you into a poet or a painter.
But neither Kundan nor his superior, Peter, nor even the tough jawans with calloused fingers, have time either for poetry or painting. Havildar JS Rathore, for instance, caresses his menacing Israeli X95 machine gun as his “baby in the mountains”. A veteran of 25 years in the BSF, Rathore is serving his fifth stint in Kashmir.
B was initially an army outpost before the soldiers moved up closer to the LoC, leaving it for the BSF to occupy the feature. The base of the hill nestles the conical-roofed houses of officials of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) which runs the Uri Hydel Project.
As he turned his gaze back to the mountains further west, Peter said:
That gun doesn’t boom, though both armies across the LoC sometimes resort to firing mortars from time to time. If Pakistani shells knock out one of the communication towers around B, the whole of Uri will be cut off.
Surrounded in the east by Deodar and pine-covered mountains, the flat surface of B outpost, besides being a grim patch that must be protected “at all costs”, is also a playground for handsome eagles which swoop down in singles or pairs, flapping their wings just inches above the ground in a slow avian dance.
"But We Don't Complain"
Located some 5,000 feet above sea level, B is a “ground of tactical importance”, explains Kundan, as two army helicopters flew through the valley eastward. Facing the mountain peaks through which runs the invisible LoC, Kundan pointed to a cluster of houses that make up Lachhipora hamlet where, according to the Company Commander, the residents are suspected to be “terrorist sympathisers”.
Meanwhile, Rathore announced that lunch – piping hot dal, chapatis, two vegetable dishes and curd – had been served. As we gorged on the simple spread, the sound of loudspeaker-amplified Friday prayers at Bajba village, adjacent to Lachhipora, wafted through the mountains. “Bajba is the last Indian police station in this zone before the inhospitable LoC zone begins,” Kundan informed.
Just as the LoC, the barracks of the 25-odd BSF jawans are also inhospitable. Previously occupied by the army unit that was stationed at B, the barracks are dark, dingy and cold. The BSF troopers are cramped three-to-a-room with little water and no power supply, notwithstanding the Uri Hydel Project nearby.
“We use battery-operated torches as substitutes for bulbs,” Rathore said, flashing a stream of light from his torch into one of the rooms.
The sight thrown up by the torch light was appalling: jawans, who were up all night on guard, slept crouched in 3 feet by 6 feet makeshift cots, their uniforms hanging from cords strung across the dark walls and small kerosene-fuelled heaters and dirty military-issue quilts rolled by their feet or heads.
“But we don’t complain,” Rathore said proudly, trying to keep a straight face and his head held high.
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