Free Operation ‘Fox-Hunt’ by Siddhartha Thorat Page B

Somehow travelling through Afghanistan, tracking down Naga rebels in Myanmar and avenging 26/11 in Baluchistan had made up for the lack of a relationship.
    His guests were in around 1100 hours. An officer called him down to the conference room. Colonel Thakur from MI and Adnan Qureshi from the IB. Sanjay began the meeting with a briefing. He carried a document he had written after going through all the reports he could find over a period of the last two weeks.
    “We have reports from all your agencies. The reports seem to be unconnected yet the NIA feels there is a pattern emerging. I will take you through them together so that we are all on the same page. We are to investigate the incidents and try and find a pattern if there is any. Two weeks back we received a report from MI that a 3rd Infantry division was being moved to the Kashmir sector. Our earlier reports collaborate that this was a surprise move. There was no plan even a month back to action this move. If the 3rd infantry division goes back to its oldpositions it will be settled in by 15 December. It’s a corps reserve division, so why is it being moved out into middle of a counter-insurgency operation in the face of huge US pressure? We also have a report from MEA that the Pakistani PM has cancelled his trip to Africa dated 17 December. There was no immediate political or natural concern to trigger this cancellation. The next report is from our Joint Intelligence task force at Washington. A DIA listening station has picked up a conversation between a LET field commander in Kashmir and Inzamam Lakhvi. It mentions a Wasim Khan, area commander in Kupwara who died in an encounter. The conversation refers to the safe passage of the
mehman
or guests. It seems that the LET field commander is the older brother of Wasim Khan, and in the conversation Lakhvi let it slip that Wasim’s martyrdom will not be wasted, that the mehman will avenge the death. We also have an incident report of this encounter from the Army. Now let’s move on to our next report. Just one week before this encounter, the LET Muridke camp was emptied and its trainees shipped to various other camps around the country. A RAW asset at the camp has claimed that a week before, Air Force lorries took away twenty men out of the camp. He was able to note down the formation sign on the trucks. They were from Sargodha Airbase. We need to know why militants would be shifted to an airbase. These reports may or may not be connected. We don’t know. But there needs to be an investigation. Within seventy-two hours, we have to give a preliminary report.”
    Pausing to drink a glass of water, Sanjay shuffled a file.
    “We also have an asset in Sargodha. We will try and find out if he has anything to report. Incidentally we have reports that JF−17 squadrons based out of Sargodha, No 16 Black Panthers and No 26 Black Spiders have cancelled leaves and recalled aircrafts from joint exercises in Saudi Arabia.”
    The JF−17s or the Joint Fighter 17s were the latest additions to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) from China.
    “Meanwhile the 9th and 11th squadrons with the F16s have been moved to Forward Operating Base for a joint exercise. It didn’t exist a month back. I will go through intelligence reports over the last month in context to today’s briefing and revert on the Sargodha matter as well,” he concluded.
    Colonel Thakur (MI) spoke next, “There is a report from Signal Intelligence which has intercepted communication in POK between a Colonel of 15th Punjab and a Flight Lieutenant in the Air Force Police claiming that some Air Force commandos with the Special Service Wing (SSW) have damaged in a brawl, his unit’s Toyota Jeeps they borrowed. The 15th Punjab is a unit which also supplies logistics to Batala militant training facility on behalf of the ISI. He wanted to file a report saying the SSW had armed civilians in the vehicle. Now what surprises me is this, what were SSW commandos doing in a field unit?