strong defence with more than a battalion with the help of regular CAF and Rajakars. There was a deep canal approx. 75 ft. wide running north and south parallel to the International Boundary approximately 7/8 miles inside Bangladesh territory. In a number of occasion attacks were launched by forces commanded by Capt. Jahangir under wham there were 3 more companies, commanded by Lt. Qayum, Ltd. Rashid and Lt. Kaisar. Every time they went for frontal confrontation they had a very heavy casualty.
Due to heavy losses of own forces in the hands of the enemy in the same place the morale of the forces were very low as they could never had a success Inspite of losing their comrades. The takes given to me is to clear up a tactically important ground around that defence which was dominating all the movements towards Nawabganj. After getting initial briefing from Lt. Col. Zaman and about the task I straight away went out for reconnaissance of the area. What I observed that the enemy had communication trenches all along the canal, approximately of a length of more than one mile. They had beautifully built bunkers prepared with the help of local people where they used local resources like bamboos, local timber/trees etc.
Every likely crossing point was covered by LMGs or MGs. They also had observation posts located either on the top of tree or on the, top of tall building. Morters were deployed to shell all the likely approaches.
It took good 2 days to carry out detail reconnaissance of the area. It was a challenge to me to make my mission a success. Every enemy platoon/coy position was identified including their automatic weapons. The enlarged sketch gave a clear pictures of the arca to a person at the very glimpse. Four companies were selected by me for the purpose. We had 3x81mm morters (medium range) with us. We also had the support of 75/24 field artillery guns with us in direct support. I prepared an order for all the coy comds and gave a detail operation order on 13 Nov. at 0900 hrs. On the cloth model. All the doubts were clarified to each and every commander and leader.
All the troops were briefed about the layout of the land only where we were going for operation. Each and everyone was very much excited and was so happy to see and know in a picturesque model of an operation which very few of them have seen or heard. I could see the sign of confidence and a very high state of morale in each and everyone down to ladder. We decided to go for night attack which was a very difficult task to carry out with semi-trained forces. But I had no other choice other than this as they enemy had better weapons and properly dug in trenches/ bunkers and was in a formidable defence. The H-hour was selected 0400 hrs. On 14 Nov, 1971. Lt. Col. Zaman was also present, when I was giving the operational order. Lt. Col. Zaman who used to be an ace gunner officer in Pakistan army volunteered to act as MIC (Mobile Fire Controller) during operation. In the same evening myself and Lt. Col. Zaman drove to some distance and walked down to a vantage point for registration of target. Just before dusk we carried out the registration. There was a 2-storied building down there. from where we could see the whole enemy area. I was very much impressed by the gunnery knowledge of Lt. Col. Zaman. With 4/5 artillery shots he could bring the artillery rounds into the target. After registration of targets we moved back to our near assembly area. 4 cays and task force HQ with support weapons like 81 mm morters etc. were asked to assemble approximately
