Postby daulat » 26 Apr 2005 01:29
Lt Cdr. Pandey looked out from the thin linen cloth bound around his face at the glaring sun and hoped that his thin cotton shirt would mask his skin tone. He was a little fairer than a typical boatman on the Meghna. It had been six hours since they crept into the wooden fishing boat and navigated up the Meghna towards Hedayatpur. The truck had brought them covertly out to a quiet village and once Pal and Bhaumik the two RAW fixers on the ground in Bangladesh had made the necessary arrangements, a rickety old boat had appeared out of the reeds and they had quickly got on board. Pal had paid off the two men who brought the boat. Ask no questions, tell no lies.
With Pandey were Petty Officer Afzal Mirza and Seaman Mondol – chosen for their resemblance to Bangladeshis and their skills in behind the lines operations. Both had passed through the MARCOS training course together, a few years after Pandey.
Beneath the bamboo strip cabin’s plank floors were oilskin bags with their MP5’s, nightscopes, grenades and some comms gear, including the trusty Saathi terminal.
The MARCOS party pulled ashore close to Jalghat as dusk fell and pretended to set up a river camp like many out of area fishermen, or perhaps ferrymen on their way home from some business somewhere down river. Whilst Mirza stayed back at the boat, Pandey and Mondol made a recon of the village, confirming the landmarks and trying to identify where Ghose might be. It had been four days since the last contact. This might be a hiding to nothing, except for the signal that had once again been picked up by Khan’s listening unit back in Kalaikunda.
They sent back a message – “Stay Put, have hope”. They had no idea if Ghose had got it or not. Pandey had asked for volunteers, Mirza and Mondol had been amongst them. Malhotra had wanted to come, but he was overruled by the brass. There were other plans for him.
Two evening’s ago Doordarshan, Star and Zee broadcast a speech by the Prime Minister – protesting vehemently about the mistreatment of the Indian dead at Hedayatpur. Footage of the shadowy images was already doing the rounds on the internet and some broadcasters had carried excerpts. The statement had come as a surprise, since normally the Indian leadership liked to gloss over Indian servicemen killed in Bangladesh – for whatever reason. This time, something was different. Last night the channels had carried an off the cuff remark by an Indian Foreign Ministry official at the Cancun G9 meeting at the back of the FM’s speech on India’s integration into the global economy that “bad behaviour by neighbours would not be tolerated any longer”.
This morning, a number of Pakistani editorials decried Indian belligerence but the Bangladeshi papers had little to say about the matter.
Pandey flicked on the NVG scope and looked at the mud huts. He began to formulate a plan. This was going to be very very difficult.
Approximately five minutes later, a strike package of four Mirage 2000-5’s took off from their temporary home at Kalaikunda and climbed up towards the distant North Bengal hills. Already above Siliguri, four Su30’s were in CAP mode whilst a lone Dornier 228 of the Navy headed off up the Hooghly/Ganga system and started listening. Over the Bihar-W.Bengal border, an Il-78 was already on station.
Mirza composed the pre-arranged message and kept it on standby on his Saathi terminal. He waited, his fingers resting on the stock of the LMG mounted now on the bows of the little boat. Off Sagarmukhi, a Bangladeshi radar picket noticed four blips over the Bay of Bengal, quite deliberate and obvious, with no hint of masking. A few moments later, Air Force control outside Dhaka knew that four MiG29K’s of the Indian Navy were flying a deliberate pattern, as yet over international waters.
Pandey narrowed the choices down to two huts, the problem now was… which one? He waited tensely in the shadows cursing the heat and the mosquitoes.
Faizul Rahman walked out into the night air to smoke a beedi. His head spun with the trials of the past few days, he did not know what to do next. At length he decided to go talk to the stranger, maybe he had some ideas? Mondol listened in his headphone as the directional mike picked up the conversation and he nudged Pandey and signaled a thumbs up.
Pandey swatted a mosquito on his neck and crept forward silently, Mondol following quickly behind, stowing his listening gear and signaling Mirza on the boat.
In another 30 seconds, the four blips out over the Bay changed course and began a slow climbing turn northwards, up towards the huge delta and dangerously closing in on Bangladeshi Airspace.
By now, the eight Mig27’s from Hashimara had climbed up to a nice brightly radar lit position over the W Bengal border and the Mirage 2000’s now also seemed to change track – eastwards.
Air HQ in Dhaka suddenly had a bigger problem on their hands. Phone calls went out to the PAF station and even a tentative one to the Chinese station. Half a minute later, the short wave radio net over Bangladesh started hissing white noise and further communications was no longer possible.
On the Tripura border, a BDR patrol suddenly found itself illuminated by signal flares and a loudspeaker in clear Bengali advising smugglers and miscreants to hold their positions whilst a BSF unit came forward to inspect them. There was a lot of commotion, it was not clear who fired the first shot. A few moments later, accurate HMG fire brought about half the BDR patrol down on the Bangladeshi side of the line.
Pandey lunged through the bamboo door of the hut and Mondol followed closely behind, quickly pulling his MP5 level with Rahman’s head. Alarmed, Prasanjit cried out for him to stop whilst Faizul found himself ready for a heart attack. There was little time to waste, Pandey quickly sized up the situation and the three of them left quickly. At the door, Faizul called back…
“Prasanjit bhai!”
“Faizul bhai?”
“My daughter…?
“Don’t worry… something will be done” Pandey replied once Mondol had quickly translated for him.
Mirza had sent off the other coded messages, and now quickly got the rest of their team and their cargo on board and pushed the boat out into the little stream that went out to the Meghna.
The Chinese radar was allowed to function for another five minutes, long enough to report that at least six aerial incursions were now underway from multiple directions, then the jammers went on again. The Colonel in charge called Beijing on the secure line, he was told to wait. When he passed this message on to the Bangladeshi Air HQ, he was treated to apoplectic rage from the other end.
Knowing full well the fate of the PAF F16’s recently, the Bangladeshi Air Force opted not to scramble, but tried to put the remaining fighters under some sort of cover. They needn’t have bothered.
The first LGB hit the radio and phone station, the second hit the police barracks outside of town. The third hit the Pakistani barracks inside Hedayatpur. The Mirages then climbed up and flew a deliberate cab rank pattern above the town. The Mig27’s did no bombing, only a number of high speed low level passes over military barracks and on the return leg they shot up a POL dump on one of the airfields. Overhead, the four Su30’s flew a highly visible race track and kept an eye on things.
Malhotra stood on the edge of the door as the Mi25 clattered eastwards, his corridor cleared ahead of him by the Mirages and headed for the rendezvous. In the meantime, Mirza had steered the little boat out into the main stream, and despite the commotion elsewhere, he was being followed by a patrol boat from Hedayatpur. The Pakistani signals unit had finally figured out what was going on and had quickly pressed the BD river patrol into action.
Whilst Mondol manned the LMG and prepared for the boat closing fast, Pandey got on the radio and got busy. Prasanjit offered to help, but Mirza smiled at him and told him to lie down.
The radar station at Sagarmukhi was hit by the Navy Mig29’s, who also bagged an F7 that had decided to come up and take a look. His wingman who was trailing him significantly behind, decided to head back once his lead’s radio went silent.
Flt. Lt. Sharma on one of the Mirage’s had never bombed a boat before, but he gave it a shot as Flying Officer Raghunath lit it up with his Litening II. The orange fireball reflected off the river for quite a while. Having done their bit, the Mirage’s headed back for fuel, whilst their place was taken by two two-seater Jaguars in night attack mode, waiting for instructions from the Phalcon flying over the Bay of Bengal with a couple of Su30’s for company.
It took a while longer for the Mi25 to reach the river, and then it was a quick transfer of the four Special Forces men under Malhotra’s charge now for the return back. It was not over off course by any means, there was a risky in flight refueling to do, but another run by the Mig27’s at Kalaikunda had facilitated that. A quick buddy refueling and then head back for the border.
Pandey got on the radio again and passed on the special instructions. A minute later, the Jaguars dropped a number of 1000 lb’ers onto the burning flames of Hedayatpur and headed home. High above, the Su30’s banked slowly and deliberately and headed back across the border.
The BDR patrol on the Tripura border had called for reinforcements, but these were hit by a number of explosions. The BSF would later claim that it was light mortar fire only. However, a BBC news crew would later find evidence of large cratering at the location.
Faizul Rahman watched the distant burning flames and smiled. Allah had listened to the poor sweeper.
Cancun, G9 summit (CNN):
Reporter: “And here we have the spokesman for the Indian Foreign Ministry, lets ask him about the alleged attacks on Bangladeshi soil…, Sir! Sir!? What do you have to say about these claims by the Bangladeshi government?”
Official: “We took some action last night to rescue one of our men who was being held in Bangladesh, illegally. We got him out thank God!”
Reporter: “There are reports of extensive damage on a number of fronts…”
Official: “We don’t know about that, you’ll have to speak to those making these allegations.”
Reporter: “What about the rescue?”
Official: “ Reports are still coming in, but as I said, thanks be to God, one of our men is now safe and well”
Reporter: “We return now to Atlanta for more on the PGA Golf tournament…”
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