Life At Siachen And Counter-Terror Ops: Major Samar Toor Explains

From Siachen To Counter-Terror Ops: Major Samar Toor On Life On India's Hardest Frontiers

"I could hear my heartbeat louder than music playing at full volume."

On the Accompany Akki podcast, Major Samar Toor of the Rajputana Rifles spoke with host Akash Kumar about his first posting at Siachen, counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir, and the tense days around the 2019 Amarnath Yatra evacuation.

First posting: Siachen Glacier

Asked how his first posting at Siachen was, Major Toor didn't sugarcoat it. "Not a good experience."

What makes Siachen so hard

- Temperatures drop to around -45°C to -50°C.
- Posts sit at about 19,000 feet, with very little oxygen.
- Rice that boils in minutes on the plains can take 45 minutes to an hour to cook.
- You lose your appetite, because digestion needs oxygen.
- Blood pressure becomes hard to control, even for fit officers fresh from the academy.

"Everything is tough there," he said.

Siachen Battle School

Every soldier going to Siachen, except those medically unfit, must clear a mandatory mountaineering and survival course at the Siachen Battle School. It's a difficult course. Those who don't clear it can't move to higher posts, stay at base camp, and don't get the related allowance.

Major Toor spent about a year and a half on his Siachen tenure, including 4 months and 23 days on a post.

Life on the frontier

- He could see enemy activity on the far side, including blasting linked to construction work along the Karakoram Highway.
- He served near Turtuk, a village India took from Pakistan in 1971.
- The area is known as the Hanif sub-sector, named after Captain Haneefuddin of the Rajputana Rifles, who was killed there during the 1999 Kargil war.
- The last Indian village in the area is Thang, where the road ends.
- Around 90 percent of the terrain there is dominated by Indian positions, he said.
- From his location, he could see K2, which he described as one enormous rock face.

On whether India should take back PoK, his answer was measured: the Army is always ready, and it acts on orders from the political leadership.

How Siachen has changed

Major Toor, commissioned in 2011, says he noticed a clear upgrade in weapons and equipment from around 2014. He said he wasn't taking any political side, just sharing what he saw as a young officer. Defence procurement generally runs over long cycles across governments.

Upgrades he described include:

- Different types of bulletproof jackets and ballistic helmets
- Rifle modification kits with Picatinny rails for lasers, torches and foregrips
- Holographic sights
- Upgrade kits for the Dragunov sniper rifle and AK rifles
- Newer rifles like the AK-203 and the SIG Sauer 7.62
- Gear and clothing now worth lakhs of rupees, and upgraded medicines

Shelters are made of fibre-reinforced plastic. They're carried up in parts by helicopter or animal transport managed by the Army Service Corps, and assembled on hilltops by Army engineers.

The 2010 cloudburst

In August 2010, between the 6th and 10th, a cloudburst struck while his regiment was on its Siachen tenure. The Bihar Regiment and the Rajputana Rifles suffered heavy losses. Trucks were buried, some still underground today, and the last body from his platoon was recovered around 47 to 53 days later.

Major Toor was still in academy training, and joined the platoon as it was recovering from the tragedy.

On facing fear

"Accepting the concept of fear makes you stronger," he said. "What is the antidote to venom? Venom itself." If you avoid fear, he explained, it keeps haunting you for years. It's better to face it.

Operation Jhajjar Kotli

Major Toor served in Jammu and Kashmir for almost three years. One operation he described was Operation Jhajjar Kotli.

- Three foreign Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were killed within 48 hours.
- Two Special Forces platoons and the Ghatak platoon of 8 Rajputana Rifles were deployed.
- There were no fatal casualties on the Indian side.
- It was, he said, the first operation in which a drone was properly used.

Why the drone mattered

The area was jungle-like, with six-foot-tall maize fields. Helicopter noise was making tracking difficult, so the helicopter was sent away and a drone was used to track the terrorists' positions accurately.

Inside the operation

Jhajjar Kotli is a tourist spot. When the team arrived, tourist lodges had been abandoned in a hurry, with doors left open. Clearing the area, Major Toor said, "I could hear my heartbeat louder than full-volume music."

Every step had to be silent. Weapons were readied before entering buildings so there would be no telltale click. Breathing and blood pressure rise, but you have to stay calm and think through every contingency: what if fire comes from the right, the front or the left?

He described being caught in the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act. A leader has to process thousands of things at once, including the risk of a hostage situation or a fidayeen attacker trying to take others down with him.

At one point, the terrorist was between the Special Forces team on one side and Major Toor's team on the other, firing a single shot each way and then going quiet. Through coordinated communication, the teams worked out who was firing. "You have to outwit your enemy," he said. "Mentally, it's even more critical. Hold your nerves and think it through."

Teamwork, not movie heroics

Asked whether he personally killed anyone, Major Toor said it's always teamwork. "It's not like in the movies, where one person goes alone and comes back having killed everyone."

Operations are done in small teams, so they aren't easily noticed. Soldiers work in a buddy system: if one is shot or has a medical emergency, the other can treat and rescue him.

What is a Ghatak platoon?

- A specialised infantry commando platoon with very tough training.
- Its standard, he said, is close to that of Special Forces or the NSG.
- It's the "ultimate" solution when a battalion faces a difficult operation.
- Ghatak teams are trained for insertion by air, land and water.
- In infantry, insertion by air is usually by slithering down from a helicopter. Parachute jumps are done by airborne troops.

Every operation, he stressed, is different. No two situations repeat.

Article 370 and the 2019 Amarnath Yatra

In 2019, Major Toor's unit was at the Amarnath cave as the date for the Article 370 decision approached. Lt Gen KJS "Tiny" Dhillon, also from the Rajputana Rifles, was the Corps Commander.

- Intelligence agencies warned that something could happen around 5 August.
- The concern was that disgruntled elements or an ISI-backed terrorist group might target the Amarnath Yatra.
- A patrol found an IED made from a pressure cooker, along with a sniper rifle, on a remote ridge line.
- The ridge appeared to have been used as a cache to store weapons and explosives before an attack.
- The Army sealed the ridge lines, deployed forces, and the evacuation of pilgrims began.

The terrain itself was dangerous: steep ridges where both hands and both feet are on the rock, with snow leopards and Himalayan brown bears in the area. One slip could be fatal.

The role of intelligence

Major Toor credited intelligence agencies, including Military Intelligence, the IB and RAW, for the early warning. Good intelligence sharing, he said, makes the Army's job much easier, and in this case, likely saved many lives.

Key takeaways

- Siachen tests the body at every level, from oxygen to digestion to blood pressure.
- Every soldier must clear the Siachen Battle School course.
- Equipment and shelters have improved significantly.
- Operation Jhajjar Kotli was among the first to properly use a drone.
- Counter-terror operations depend on small teams, calm minds and teamwork.
- Intelligence sharing helped prevent a possible attack on the 2019 Amarnath Yatra.

Watch the full episode: [Full episode link]
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Which part of Major Samar Toor's story surprised you the most?