Dealing with the Devil at Dinanagar: Swarming and Other Reflections

In 2000 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt wrote a seminal RAND article on the subject of Swarming[i]. In the animal world the ‘swarm’ phenomenon is the result of an instinct which imparts security and efficiency in numbers.[ii]The heart of their concept was a theory, that akin to a swarm of bees, locusts, swallows, fish or migrating ducks etc. modern communications can permit small teams of soldiers to synchronize their actions, generate ‘swarm intelligence’ gain ‘swarm strength’ and defeat any enemy. The multiple directions of attack overwhelm the capacity of the outnumbered and hemmed in opponents to think coherently and disorients their OODA loop.[iii]

On 27 July 2015, the swarm was in action at Dinanagar. The Punjab Police an erstwhile battle-hardened force but now stated to be much degraded because of lack of funding,[iv] displayed swarm tactics to overwhelm three heavily-armed and, presumably, motivated militants (on a suicide mission). The police ‘took them all out’, refusing the direct help of all central agencies. That the ‘Swarm Strength’ was more an instinctive reaction to an event, than the result of formal military training and disciple is another matter.

There was criticism that the Punjab Police wanted to handle everything themselves and did not use the trained army personnel with better weapons, equipment and experience who were close by.[v]While a few detachments of the army did assist the Punjab police,[vi]the take of this article is in line with the views of Ajay Sahni who opines that all police forces should be able to handle maximum terrorist situations themselves as the Army and NSG cannot be everywhere.[vii] We should applaud the fact that the police handled a difficult situation more or less on their own. The army would have been invaluable in case the plans of the terrorists with respect to the derailment of a train and attack on a bus had been successful. In that case the casualties and mayhem would have been much more. The physical area of operations would have increased manifold; possibly a few hundred square kilometers. To secure and conduct operations in an area of that extent would have required exponentially greater resources and time. There would have been an apprehension of more than one group of terrorists. This would have divided the reaction. Consequently, the situation would have been much beyond the capacity of the police force. It is axiomatic that in this scenario the police would have taken the aid of the army.

The Punjab police must have invested a lot of resources and time in training their SWAT teams. They have existed since 2011 without having been used in actual operations.[viii]Had they not been used, it would have been demoralizing for this force. One can be certain that this success will fire up their morale and they will become even more capable. When resources are less and threats are infrequent, it is not cost effective to maintain large and very well equipped forces. One should rely on standard police forces for fixing the terrorists to one place, as was done this time, and then neutralize them with an elite small team.

The incident highlighted that the Punjab Police as well as the BSF deployed on the IB in Punjab needs to be prepared for the spillover of terrorism from J&K. The Punjab Police needs to man the police stations and outposts more robustly and not leave sensitive areas, especially close to the J&K border, to Home Guards (three of the four policemen killed were Home Guards).[ix]  The shrill rhetoric warning of the return of Khalistan militancy is misplaced, as that will not happen. To that extent news items like “Five bombs were also found on a railway track in the state where India fought a deadly Sikh insurgency in the 1980s”[x] need to be worded with maturity, especially by the Indian media. Such headlines are structured to be read between the lines to generate sensationalism. There was not even an iota of indication that the bombs could have been planted by Khalistani elements. The terrorists who struck on 27 July were so obviously Pakistani that only an utterly naïve person will even contemplate that their identity was unknown. The Sikhs are intimately integrated in India. Nothing should be expected barring an odd criminal trying to draw personal benefit out of posing as a Khalistani or smugglers out to make easy money or miscreants doing a bomb hoax as was done at Gurdaspur[xi] three days after the 27 Jul 2015 attack.

It was a stroke of luck that the terrorists entered a police station where the following things were in favour of the police:

• The police station could be dominated from adjoining buildings.
• The building was an old structure with fragile brickwork which could be dislodged by even rifle fire. The obsolete 7.62 SLRs which the majority of the Punjab Police personnel seemed to be armed with, packs a heavy punch against such a brick structure.
• The building had windows with no wire mesh or grill. This facilitated throwing in of grenades.
• The Police station had a boundary wall high enough to give cover to ‘the Swarm’ and low enough to enable them to observe and fire upon the building.
• The timing of the attack in the daylight hours aided the swarm tactics. Neutralising terrorists holed up in a building at night requires more specialized and different tactics, techniques and procedures.

However much the Pakistani establishment and media may deny it, the fact is that the militants were from Pakistan. The following evidences both hard and circumstantial allude to this:

• The analysis of the GPS track.[xii]
• The conformity in respect of time of attack, modus operandi and distance from the IB with respect to earlier attacks in J&K.
• Evidence from an examination of the bodies of the dead militants.[xiii]
• LeT literature found on the militants.[xiv]

It was stated on TV by a senior official while the operation was on that the operation was taking longer because an effort was being made to take at least one terrorist alive.[xv]Such an endeavor, in any such incident in the future, must be avoided. Taking a terrorist alive to get visible proof of the involvement of Pakistan is putting our personnel in avoidable danger with limited payoffs. Our experience with Ajmal Kasab is vindication of this. The Pakistani government steadfastly kept on denying any connect with Kasab. Their stance will always be that Jehadis are not in their control. The world had no doubt that Kasab or any such attackers are aided or abetted by Pakistan, directly or indirectly. David Headley’s testimony has proved this.[xvi]As per one report it cost the exchequer $ 108 million to keep Kasab alive and give him a fair trial.[xvii] Was this expenditure worth the payoff ? This article opines that it was not.

It is pointless to be circumspect while referring to the ‘Pakistani Hand’. As Arun Joshi says it is also wasteful of energy to indulge in the rhetoric that “we will teach Pakistan a lesson”.[xviii]Rather than expend energy on articulating a threat, it is more relevant to devise ways and means to deter Pakistani recourse to a hybrid war through terrorism. Whether we do this through pure military means, by developing our counter-terrorist deterrence, by mobilizing international opinion or by engaging with Pakistan is a different matter.

God was with the Indians during the 27^th July operation from the word ‘go’ notwithstanding the seven precious lives lost. 27/11 resulted in 166 deaths, including 17 Security personnel. 10 terrorists (including Kasab who was hanged in 2012) were killed,[xix] an adverse ratio of 16.6 : 1. At Dinanagar it was 2.3:1. While even a single casualty is difficult to accept, as it goes, this one appears a far less damaging ratio.  What succeeded was the ‘Swarm’. Anyone who gets across our borders to create mayhem will meet his maker. Regardless of the adverse comments on their equipment, non-tactical movements and physical fitness, during daytime the ‘Swarm’ will suffice. However, at night it will have to be well-trained and night-enabled elite forces.

Views expressed by the author are personal.