Did You Know The Kargil Misadventure Was Planned By A 'Gang Of Four Pakistani Generals'?

The success of 'Operation Vijay' in Kargil on 26 July 1999 against Pakistani army is certainly one of brightest chapter in the glorious history of the mighty Indian Army. The heroes who sacrificed their lives in the war were immortalised in annals of history.

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But only a few know that it was the 'Gang of Four' who planned the Kargil misadventure, not Pakistani establishment. Be it ISI, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Navy, other generals of Pakistan Army or even the then Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif - nobody had a clue about their nefarious plans till mid May 1999 when war with India became inevitable.

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Lieutenant General (retd) Shahid Aziz in his book 'Ye Khamoshi Kab Tak' has given various references about Kargil and how four Pakistani generals - Gen Pervez Musharraf, the then chief of general staff, Lt Gen Mohammad Aziz, FCNA (Force Command Northern Areas), Lt Gen Javed Hassan and 10-Corps commander Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad had planned Kargil right under the nose of the Pakistani establishment.

The majority of corps commanders and principal staff officers were kept in the dark, says Gen Aziz. ¡°Even the then Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Tauqir Zia came to know about it later,¡± he told Dawn in June 2013. At the time, he was serving as director general of the analysis wing of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

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The operation was so secretive, that had it been a success, it would have been regarded as great clandestine military operations ever. But...

Kargil stemmed from India's capture of Siachen in 1984

India under 'Operation Meghdoot' had captured more than 1000 square miles of un-demarcated area of Siachen Glacier. This gave India an unprecedented leverage over both China and Pakistan.

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Pakistan couldn't do much then, but a sense of failure always haunted these generals. In Kargil sector, both armies used to vacate their post during winters and re-occupy them on Line Of Control (LOC) in summers.

The Pakistani generals wanted to avenge the fiasco of Siachen by capturing the posts in Kargil. They wanted to use them as bargaining chip for the return of posts in Siachen.

The generals knew that India can't overlook Kargil because of the highway passing through the region, the main artery of Indian supply lines to its forces in the glacier.

Similar plan was offered to Gen Zia-ul-Haq in 1987, but Pak didn't have nukes then

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Pakistani general had offered a similar plan to General Zia-ul-Haq in 1987, but it wasn't approved since he feared that India might open another front at the international border in Jammu and Punjab. Pakistan was already engaged on the Afghan front against the soviets and Zia didn't want to take a chance.

But this time, Pakistan had tested nuclear weapons in 1998, and the Generals thought India wouldn't dare to open another front on the IB.

It started in October-November 1998

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According to various theories, the generals planned their misadventure in October-November 1998 when Indian Army started vacating their posts in the beginning of winters. A Pakistani general did recce of the area and found that there was no army presence for miles. This encouraged them.

Initially they wanted to capture 10 posts, but ended up capturing 140 plus

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After training for high altitude warfare in the thick of winters, an expected size of 200 infiltrators started their campaign in January. Crawling, they reached Kargil heights by March and saw scores of Indian bunkers empty. According to various theories, they had planned to capture 10 odd post, but they found them unoccupied, asked for reinforcements.

Captured Kargil in thick of Vajpayee-Sharif's bus diplomacy

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In February 1999, the then Indian PM, AB Vajpayee went to Lahore in a bus in hopes that joint efforts of Sharif and Vajpayee would lay foundation of new Indo-Pak relations. By then Pakistani troops by then had captured over 140 posts in Kargil and none of the governments had a clue about it.

How Sharif was fooled

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If conspiracy theories are to be believed, Pakistani PM, Nawaz Sharif didn't know anything about what was going on in Kargil till May 15. Through he was taken to Skardu in POK in January but wasn't told anything about the operation. On May 16, Gen Aziz in a briefing explained the situation to various army officer and government, but didn't tell anything about Kargil heights or the fact that the intruders were Pakistani army regulars and not Mujahideen.

According to other generals, who later revealed the information, Nawaz Sharif was shown the location of their men and Indian army but not the LOC. Sharif too believed that if these fighters get Kargil and later Siachen if not Kashmir, his political stature would rival that of the founder of Pakistan Mohammed Ali Jinnah himself.

When Musharaff's phone was tapped in China

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On May 26 and 29, Gen Pervez Musharraf made two phone calls to Gen Aziz from China, where he had gone for a state visit, to discuss the matter. His calls were tapped and if conspiracy theories are believed, the Chinese tapped his calls and the details were passed on to CIA who later informed Indians about it. Indians by then had only started the attempts to recapture Kargil and were facing stern retaliation from Pakistan troops sitting on the top.