Surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army on Pakistan based terror groups had drawn mixed reactions from politicians from inside the country. Various videos had surfaced which verified the operation conducted by the Indian Army with strong support from the incumbent NDA government that shocked the world with their successful retribution for the dastardly massacre of Indian soldiers at Uri in 2016. The all-important surgical strike is in news once again and for a great reason this time. Lt General (retired) Rajendra Nimbhorkar, former head of the 15 Corps regiment which took care of security at the Line of Control (LoC) in the Jammu region and who had played a key role in planning the attacks has opened up about the unique and innovative methods used by the Indian Army during the surgical strike. Nimbhorkar was speaking at a function organised by the Thorle Bajirao Peshwe Pratishthan (trust), where he was felicitated on Tuesday.
The planners of the surgical strike had to bear in mind that the stray dogs could alert the enemies resulting in the operation being hampered. To solve this, the Indian Army soldiers who carried out the surgical strikes across the LoC had used a very unusual weapon to maintain secrecy and to carry out the operation covertly, leopard urine and feces. While the planning for the surgical strikes was underway the team thought about the external factors which could harm the successful completion of the operation. Stray dogs giving away their positions and also raising suspicion by barking was one of the problems which they had to find a cure to. Nimbhorkar said, “When I was the brigade commander in the Noushera sector (earlier in his career), I had observed that there were often leopard attacks on the dogs there and the dogs stayed away from the area at night fearing leopards,”
The Indian troops used this as a measure against the threat from dogs giving away their location when they were crossing the LoC. The soldiers spread leopard urine and feces along the length of the route, keeping the dogs away which resulted in a clean and precise attack with no losses on the Indian contingent. This unique approach is again a proof of how innovatively the Army officials had to think to pass the challenge given by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to avenge the death of their brothers. Nimbhorkar went on to add, “Then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had given us a week’s time to execute the plan and accordingly, I had shared the plan with the troops, but did not reveal the locations to be targeted. The locations were shared with the troops only a day prior to the attack,”
Everything from using leopard urine and feces to the timing of the attack which was fixed at 3:30 AM were fixed to ensure maximum damage to the enemy and minimalizing own losses. The perfect execution of a perfect plan is a proof of the efficiency of the army and the incident recounted by the Lt. General (retired) Nimbhorkar speaks volumes about the out of the box thinking which the Indian Army had to do in order to give a jolt to the enemy.
