Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

could, however, not prevent the residents of thetwo parts from free mixing and interaction. Evenmarriages used to take place.The ‘Darbar’ (i.e. the State Government and itsoffices) used to shift, every year, from Srinagar toJammu during the winter months and of the twoADs, one used to move, with the entire office andstaff to Jammu to coincide with the movement of‘Darbar’. In view of the sensitive nature of thesituation in the Valley, one AD, with only his PA,used to stay back at Srinagar.In November, 1962, I moved down to Jammu,while my colleague Hamir Singh stayed behindat Srinagar. Apart from handling all aspects ofintelligence and establishment work, I was alsoresponsible for arranging supplies for the entireIB staff posted in Ladakh.In December 1962, an incident of burning of atemple by a muslim mob occurred at a very remoteplace called Kishtwar in Jammu region. At about100 miles on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, thereis a place called Batote. There is a road diversionfrom there towards Kishtwar, which is locatedat a distance of 50 miles from Batote. The roadwas extremely bad and we had no IB personnelposted there. The news of the temple burningwas announced by the AIR. Despite an extremelybad weather, I directed DCIO, Jammu to go toKishtwar immediately, to obtain full information.Shri Mullick telephoned me at Jammu and wantedto know full details of the incident. Getting adirect phone call from Shri Mullick was rare and itcertainly gave us shivers. I told him that our DCIOhad left for Kishtwar but had got stranded in hisjeep, at Batote, and could not proceed further asthe Batote-Kishtwar road was badly breached dueto heavy landslides at a number of places. ShriMullick ordered — ‘TELL THE DCIO TO WALK’and put his telephone down with a bang. I neednot describe the plight of the poor DCIO.In Ladakh, AD, Leh had been given the task ofestablishing a number of IB posts along the borderof the area, which China had illegally occupied.The personnel at these posts were living in tentswhich used to get damaged frequently due to rainand snowfall. They required repeated repairs andAD Leh had employed some local people, ona permanent basis, for this work. During wintermonths, all supplies to AD Leh were sent fromJammu by IAF planes, which would very oftencome back after flying over Leh airport withoutlanding there, due to bad weather. In January1963, I received a frantic WT message from ADLeh to send to him 200 needles, as the repairwork of tents was suffering. AD, Leh never failedto mark copies of his messages to Shri A.K. Dave,DD at lB Headquarters, who immediately startedtelephoning me to express his annoyance at myalleged failure in not immediately arranging thesupply of needles for AD, Leh. After three days,when I had got the seventh such call from Mr. Dave,I told him “Sir, 200 needles were air-dropped byan IAF plane today on Leh airport and all of themhave been successfully collected by AD, Leh”. AsShri Dave didn’t believe me, I asked him to checkup with AD, Leh. To air-drop the needles, we hadput them in a small cardboard box which was putin a big heap of straw and made into a ball of aboutfive feet diameter, packed in a gunny bag.In our days, there used to be only one flighteveryday between Srinagar and Delhi. It wasa hopping flight with stopovers at Jammu andAmritsar. The plane used was a Dakota, whichwas non-pressurised and had the capacity of only28 passengers. Very often, in rainy weather andduring winter months, the Dakota could not landat Srinagar airport.There was always very heavy traffic on theSrinagar-Jammu highway, especially before thecommencement of winter. The road was notadequately wide and was poorly maintained. Atany point of time, there would be hundreds oftrucks, buses and cars moving on the road fromboth sides. At the time of shifting the ‘Darbar’in November 1963, I travelled from Srinagar toJammu in a jeep, with a trailer attached behind.My wife and two sons and the driver were allcramped in the jeep. The weather was quite bad.After we had travelled about sixty miles, it startedsnowing heavily. We somehow managed toreach Batote, which is almost midway betweenSrinagar and Jammu and is a temporary haltingplace on the highway. By that time, about 20miles of the road, on each side of Batote, hadgot covered with snow, and hundreds of busesfull of passengers and trucks were stranded. Wesomehow managed to get a room in the small tworoomBatote dak-bungalow and lodged ourselves58The Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue