The Battle of Chachro involved a division-sized assault and multiple raids by the Indian Armed Forces on the eastern town of
Chachro
Chachro(Urdu:چھاچھرو) is a Tehsil in the Tharparkar District of Sindh, Pakistan. It is located in the southeast corner of Pakistan, in the Thar Desert, along the Pakistan-India border. It has a population of 351,263.
Geography
Chachro is ...
in the Thar desert of West Pakistan. The battle resulted in India capturing the town and around 3,000 sq. miles of surrounding sandy wasteland.
While a large area was captured, it had little to no economic or political impact on Pakistan owing to the region's emptiness.
Background
The 10 Para (Special Forces) was raised in 1967 as an offshoot of 9 Para (Special Forces). The unit specializes in
desert warfare
In desert warfare, the heat and lack of water can sometimes be more dangerous than the enemy. The desert terrain is the second most inhospitable to troops following a cold environment. The lack of water, extremes of heat/cold, and lack of cover ma ...
. From five months prior to the 1971 war, two teams (Alpha and Charlie) of 10 Para SF were trained intensively to carry out long-range raids, inspired by
British SAS raids of German airfields in North Africa during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
The raid
The following account of the raid is made entirely from Indian sources.
The teams of 10 Para SF were given the objective of striking Pakistani positions 80 km inside, hitting
supply lines
Military supply-chain management is a cross-functional approach to procuring, producing and delivering products and services for military materiel applications. Military supply chain management includes sub-suppliers, suppliers, internal inf ...
and creating confusion.
The raid began on the night of 5 December, with the Alpha team advancing quietly through the night towards Chachro. However, they were spotted by a Pakistani outpost in the morning and came under attack, and were forced to take cover. To break the impasse, Naik Nihal Singh took a jeep and charged at high speed at the Pakistani post, firing the mounted
light machine gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridges of the same caliber as the other riflemen of the sam ...
. This allowed the rest of the team to also attack, with 18 machine guns firing in unison, causing the Pakistani defenders to flee.
Next, on the night of 7 December, the raiders moved to capture the wing headquarters of the
Pakistan Rangers
The Pakistan Rangers ( ur, ) are a paramilitary federal law enforcement organization in Pakistan, operating under the authority of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan. Their primary purpose is to secure and defend sites of significance in the ...
in Chachro. The Alpha team took covering positions, while the Charlie team moved in for the offensive. By first light, Chachro was captured. In the raid, 17 Rangers were killed, and 12 were captured alive. The post and the prisoners were handed over to the
20 Rajput Battalion which had linked up.
After that, the team crept towards Virawah, reaching it close to midnight. They attacked the Ranger camp there, resulting in the Rangers at Virawah also abandoning the post and fleeing. The unit then proceeded towards the
tehsil
A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...
headquarters of
Nagarparkar
Nagarparkar ( ur, , sd, ننگرپارڪر), is a tehsil in at the base of the Karoonjhar Mountains in Tharparkar District in Sindh province of Pakistan.
The historic Churrio Jabal Durga Mata Temple is situated here. The taluka is located at a d ...
and captured it as well before the daybreak of 8 December. After the arrival of the regular infantry, the prisoners were handed over. Thereafter, the unit was tasked with destroying an
ammunition dump at
Islamkot
Islamkot Tehsil ( ur, ), () is a Tehsil in the Tharparkar District in Sindh, Pakistan. Hundreds of neem trees seen on Islamkot-Mithi, Islamkot-Chachro and Islamkot-Nagarparkar roads were planted during chairmanship of Nihalchand Pabani and under ...
. However, on arrival, it found the place to be empty. While heading back towards India, it spotted a Pakistani convoy at Lumio and ambushed it, killing 20 Pakistani soldiers and taking others prisoners.
Result
By the end of the war, India captured an area of about 13,000 sq km of Sindh up to
Umerkot
Umerkot (formerly known as Amarkot) is a city in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
The local language is Dhatki, which is one of the Rajasthani languages of the Indo-Aryan language family. It is most closely related to Marwari. Sindhi, Urdu and ...
.
India continued to hold the captured territory until 22 December 1972 and handed it over to Pakistan after the
Shimla Pact of 1972. During this time, an Indian sub-post office was opened at Chachro and allotted a
Postal Index Number
A Postal Index Number (PIN; sometimes redundantly a PIN code) refers to a six-digit code in the Indian postal code system used by India Post. On 15 August 2022, the PIN system celebrated its 50th anniversary.
History
The PIN system was intro ...
.
10 Para SF was conferred the
Battle Honour 'Chachro 1971', and received 10 gallantry awards including a
Mahavir Chakra
The Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) () is the second highest military decoration in India, after the Param Vir Chakra, and is awarded for acts of conspicuous gallantry in the presence of the enemy, whether on land, at sea or in the air. It replaced the Br ...
awarded to its commanding officer Lt Col
Bhawani Singh.
The Chachro Raid was the first long-distance raid across desert terrain undertaken by the Indian Army, and became a benchmark for future operations of a similar nature.
See also
*
India-Pakistan battles
*
Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chachro 1971
Battles of the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971
Military raids
Tharparkar District
History of Sindh (1947–present)
Military history of Sindh
Desert warfare