When Kashmir Snows Saw Army Avenging Wandhama Massacres

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Wandhama Massacre of Pandits 27 Years Ago Sparked National Outrage

By Vikram Jit Singh

The Wandhama massacre was one of several such killing sprees of the minorities that took place in Kashmir and south of the Pir Panjals in the Jammu region during that horrific phase of the 1990s and early 2000s.

The massacre on 25 January had left the Army embarrassed. The wanton butchery sparked a national outrage. It shook India to the core of its secular nationhood.

A worried prime minister Inder K Gujral, along with his principal secretary, NN Vohra, flew down in a helicopter to Ganderbal on 28 January to take stock of the situation.

The pandit massacre loomed as a major threat over promising signs of a return to normalcy. An elected state government was in place.

The VVIPs, along with the chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, and the governor, General KV Krishna Rao (retired), joined the mourners at Wandhama on the same day. They were received at the Ganderbal helipad by the GOC, 8 Mountain Division, Major General JBS Yadava, Vir Chakra, whose formation’s area of responsibility included the Wandhama village.

There had been a lapse on the part of the Division’s 5 Sector Rashtriya Rifles HQ — it had failed to keep the sensitive Wandhama village housing a significant and threatened minority under regular surveillance and patrolling.

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‘After briefing the dignitaries on the critical situation, I assured them that within a month, the Wandhama killers would be dealt with under the law of the land.

True to that assurance, and within a month of the massacre, the Army had nailed 11 of the 12 terrorists responsible for the massacre,’ recalled Lieutenant General Yadava.

The Wandhama massacre was no ordinary incident of terror and brutality; its execution lay at the centre of the ISI’s2 politicostrategic aims.

‘The operational situation in Kashmir had changed and to the ISI’s disadvantage because of relentless operations launched by the security forces. The state was fast returning to normalcy, and a freshly elected government under Farooq Abdullah was at the helm. 26 January was Republic Day, and the Winter Games at Gulmarg were to commence from 27 January, which would have signalled to the international community a robust return to normalcy in Kashmir.

Hence the timing of the massacre on 25 January and that, too, in the VIP Assembly constituency of Ganderbal, which was the Abdullahs’ pocket borough. The ISI was desperate to destabilise the valley and convey to the international community that the situation was far from normal and contradictory to the reassuring message the Indian Government wanted to convey by staging the Winter Games.

So, to divert focus away from the continuous losses suffered by terrorists and portray a scenario where the government’s writ did not run, the ISI executed the Wandhama massacre.

The pandits were targeted as a means of ethnic cleansing and promotion of communalism. To the Kashmiri populace overall, the message was that it was the terrorists who were calling the shots. The operational instructions that I got after the Wandhama massacre from the 15 Corps Commander Lieutenant General Krishan Pal, with whom I spoke every evening, were to restore peace in the area and facilitate the elected government in carrying out its mandate. Based on his instructions, I issued operational orders to 70 Infantry Brigade,’ recalled Lieutenant General Yadava.

The first operational move initiated after the massacre by 8 Mountain Division HQ was to realign the area of responsibility of 5 Sector Rashtriya Rifles and 70 Infantry Brigade and get the latter formation to take charge of the Wandhama area.

The 70 Infantry Brigade was a reserve formation for Ladakh’s 3 Infantry Division and its permanent headquarters were at Khalsi, Ladakh. The brigade’s primary orientation was towards the defence of far-east Ladakh.

However, it had been pulled out by the then 15 Corps Commander Lieutenant General JS Dhillon and brought down to the valley in 1997 to plug gaps in the CI-Ops grid to the north of Srinagar.

The Brigade was commanded by a daring and dynamic paratrooper officer, Brigadier RK Shivrain, who later retired as a major general. The wheels of justice had begun to turn. Local informers working for the security forces tipped off the Army and pinpointed the location of the Wandhama terrorists.

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The murderers of the pandits were hiding in improvised structures of wood and polythene sheets and remote natural caves on the Safapora heights outside Ganderbal and just 3 km from Wandhama village.

The terrorists would use goat tracks to come down from the heights at night and obtain food from the villages. The Safapora heights were a remote, hostile terrain where there was minimal human presence.

There were many caves here where the terrorists could hide and monitor the situation below them without incurring a high risk of detection. The Wandhama massacre, according to the diaries and other documents seized from the killers later, was planned three to four months prior to its execution on the night of 25 January

The stage was set for an extraordinary assault by the infantry troops in the Safapora mountains. The spilt blood of the pandits would be avenged in an epic battle in the high snows.

(Excerpted from Flowers On A Kargil Cliff by Vikram Jit Singh, published by The Browser)

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