Battlefield Jaffna Abandoned They Fought

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On the night of 12 October 1987, in a Special Heliborne Operation, 150 soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) were trapped inside Jaffna University, Sri Lanka, surrounded by fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). As the rest of the IPKF force desperately tried to break through the well-entrenched LTTE defences, the soldiers found themselves slowly bleeding to death. Miserably behind schedule, outnumbered and outgunned-with ammunition and supplies tast dwindling and no reinforcements in sight the rescuers fought with their backs, literally, to the wall.

With the politicians playing their own games and the Indian spy agencies supporting the LTTE against them, the IPKF fought to determine who was friend and foe. Battlefield Jaffna takes you into the heart of the struggle, right in the middle of the most brutal, intense and dirty battle fought in Sri Lanka. It is a story of men without bullets of men with only their courage left to defend themselves as the battle wore on.

With vast and in-depth knowledge of the nation's intemal security, Col Sunil Kotnala is a third-generation Army officer. He was commissioned in the 5th Battalion 'The Garhwal Rifles' and went on to command a Special Operations' battalion on the Indo-Tibet Border.

In 25 years of his service, he had a wide operational spectrum all across India. He served in Kashmir as well as in the insurgency-infested North East. A Garhwali by birth, he is a natural and keen mountaineer.

Col Koinala has been awarded the Chief of the Army Staff Commenda- tion Card and General Officer Commanding, Northern Command Com- mendation Card twice for his outstanding services.

He published his first book, Holy Warriors, in 2017 which is now being converted into a web series.

The LITE in Sri Lanka was the deadliest, most brutal separatist group the world had ever seen. It was not until the IPKF landed in Sri Lanka and the peace accord was thrown to the winds, that the Indian Army understood the impact of fighting insurgency on foreign soil. India had had its own insurgencies and militancy over the years, spread from the northeastern states of Manipur, Nagaland, and Mizoram, to recently in the northern state of Punjab, but had never confronted anything of the sort that awaited them in Sri Lanka. Being the third largest conventional army in the world, it seemed a foreign holiday to visit the island and implement a peace accord. The separatist groups were all India's creation, and the R&AW fully controlled them.

Some called it 'India's Vietnam', and some said it was a strategic mistake directed by incompetent generals. There has been a lot of debate over the years about India's Vietnam and I am sure a few readers might not agree with my perspective on the issue.

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