Khara attack: The day the helicopter played a decisive role

“The combat that started yesterday evening has not ended yet. There  are preliminary estimates of heavy Maoist casualties. Exact numbers  have not been ascertained,” I heard a despondent and anxious voice  on the telephone. 

Before I could even utter a word, the person on the other side said,  “Captain Thapa, the Maoists are going to capture the Khara barracks.  We need to fly there immediately for rescue and reinforcements.” 

The telephone call in the wee hours of 8 April 2005 not only  disturbed my sleep but also my peace of mind. I was at my home in  Sinamangal, Kathmandu. 

It was Lieutenant Colonel Dipak Karki, head of the flight operation  unit of the Royal Nepal Army’s Number 11 Brigade, who was on the  other side of the phone. He repeated, “We have been asked to rescue  the injured and send in reinforcements. We must leave immediately.” 

*** 

I had chanced upon a job as an MI-17 instructor pilot for the  Nepal Army. I got associated with the Air Brigade of the Army after  the government declared an emergency and deployed the Army in  order to end the Maoist war. I had been appointed as an expert pilot to  train Nepal Army pilots and to help with rescue and reinforcements.

Earlier, I used to do similar work for the Nepal Police when the  government had deployed only the force to fight the ‘people’s war’.  Once the government deployed the Army, Brigadier Gunja Man  Lama (of Number 11 Brigade), Pilot Madan KC and others used to  occasionally ask me to fly for the Army as well. 

While working for the police, I used to meet senior Army officers,  who also used to request me to “help the nation” by flying Army  choppers. We also exchanged our experiences during the ‘people’s war’.  I was well acquainted with CoAS Pyar Jung Thapa ever since he was a  Brigadier General. After the Army’s deployment, at his special request,  I started flying Army helicopters at the end of 2001. 

*** 

Continuous flights had made me exhausted and I was in  Kathmandu on a few days’ break. When flights were regular, I spent  most nights in either Nepalgunj or Pokhara. Immediately after my  telephone conversation with Lieutenant Colonel Dipak Karki, I got  ready to fly to Khara in Rukum. 

The main gearbox of the Army’s RN-37 helicopter needed an  overhaul. The average age of a main gear box is 2,000 flight hours  and it needs to be overhauled after that. So the RN-37 helicopter was  grounded at the Tribhuvan International Airport for maintenance. 

Generally, a grounded chopper cannot be flown. In emergencies  or in special situations, it can be flown for a few hours with experts’ approval. 

Such a situation emerged on the morning after the attack in  Khara when we needed to fly there for rescue and reinforcements.  A three-member committee comprising Brigadier Gunja Man Lama  (head of the Air Brigade), Colonel Santosh Karki (an engineer in the  same brigade) and I was formed. It recommended that the grounded  helicopter, which had a capacity of 21 people, be flown for a maximum  of 10 hours. Then, together with co-pilot Major Kiran Thapa, flight  engineer Hira Lal Maharjan and 32 rangers of the Mahabir battalion  (and some ammunition), I flew toward Bhairahawa.

It was probably around seven in the morning when we set off. In Bhairahawa, we added a few rangers and arms and ammunition to  the chopper and then headed for the Army’s Mid-Western Division in  Nepalgunj. 

*** 

After the shock of the Khara attack, an eerie silence had enveloped the  Mid-Western Division. Even the air seemed to have stilled. Telephone  rings sounded deafeningly noisy. The faces of army officials looked tense and disheartened. We could not meet Division head Dipak Bikram JBR, as he had already flown to Musikot earlier in the morning.  

But when he landed in Musikot, he could talk to me on a military  telephone set. He sounded anxious and despondent. “It all depends on  you now, Captain Th apa. Save us from being overrun.” 

Before talking to Rana, I had spoken on the phone with Home  Secretary Chandi Prasad Shrestha and AIG Rajendra Bahadur Singh,  both of whom had stressed on the need for a quick rescue, given the  scale of the destruction. I could tell from the concerns of all these  high-level officers that the government had accorded a high level of  prestige to the Khara combat. 

In fact, I had even heard that on the morning of April 8, King Gyanendra had told CoAS Pyar Jung Thapa that the Army had to win the Khara battle, no matter what. “What on earth is the Army doing?”  the king had apparently yelled. 

*** 

The Maoist attack in Khara had become a hot topic for everyone—from the king to the ordinary citizens. The king, the home minister, the army chief, the heads of the two police forces as well as other high level security officials were all waiting with bated breath to find out the  outcome of the Khara battle. 

Of all the attacks that the Maoists had launched till then, Khara  was considered the biggest. Word had it that their preparation was as intense as the attack. The rebels’ videos and documents that became  public after the peace process make it clear that they had employed  maximum strength in the Khara attack. 

While the main planner of the attack was none other than Pushpa  Kamal Dahal, the Supreme Commander of the ‘people’s army’, the battle had been commanded by Nanda Kishor Pun  and Janardan Sharma, respectively the heads of the central  and western divisions of the rebels’ army. Now Pun has twice been  elected Vice-President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.  Sharma was Home Minister under the Congress-Maoist coalition  government and later the Finance Minister. 

The Maoists had created their own military structure during the  ‘people’s war’. Like the Nepali Army, the rebels had mobilized their  ‘people’s army’ in organizational units ranging from a militia to a  division. They claimed to have three divisions—eastern, central and  western—of which they consolidated the full strength of two in order  to mount an attack on the army’s Khara security basecamp on 7 April 2005. 

The Maoists had been claiming that mid-western districts such as  Rolpa, Rukum, Jajarkot and Salyan were their bases. They had their  ‘shelters’, and carried out most of their activities, in the remotest  settlements of these districts. 

They had assessed that they would further fortify their strongholds  if they could defeat the Nepal Army at Khara. And they had adopted a fitting military strategy. 

*** 

The fighting between the Maoist guerillas and the army started  before dusk on April 7. The rebels had kept their preparations for the  attack extremely secret, so the army got reliable intelligence about it  only late that afternoon. 

An army officer deployed at the Khara basecamp recalled the  incident thus: “We had information about an imminent attack, and about the preparations for it, three days earlier. But we did not have  precise intelligence on where and when the attack would take place.  On the afternoon of April 7, we were informed by local sources that  there would be an attack that evening. So we stayed alert and even  made an evening patrol.” 

“Fighting started in the evening when the soldiers patrolling the  area struck the invading Maoists with long-range weapons. The Maoist  guerrillas were marching ahead from Khumcheti Danda and Gidde  Danda, while opening fire with long-range weapons. Soldiers from  the Musikot Gulma had set off for Khara, but they could not advance  much because of the ambushes set up on the way,” added the officer. 

As the night wore on, the fighting intensified. The Maoist guerrillas  fired at and advanced toward the basecamp from all sides. They  used 81-mortars, GPMGs, two-inch mortars, as well as long-range  weapons. The sounds of the firing and explosions and the war cries  turned Khara into a battlefield throughout the night. “After 10 pm, the  two sides fought a close battle. The Maoists tried to enter the camp by  digging a trench under Gate 1, but we opened fire and stopped them  right there. Throughout the night, they tried to cut the wires around  the barracks and get inside, but could not,” recounted some soldiers  after they were rescued. 

Police personnel at the Khara basecamp fought under the unified command of the army. Once they were rescued, we could tell from  their condition that they had battled for long hours—18 hours straight. During the battle, a night-vision helicopter reached Khara twice—first at midnight and again at 3 am. The rescued soldiers said, “After  the copters struck, the firing subsided but did not end. Both sides  continued firing until dawn.”  

The Maoists had adopted the strategy employed by the British in  the battle of Nalapani. Word had spread from early in the morning  that the rebels had, for the past 18 hours, blocked the flow of water  to the Khara camp from Maru VDC. It was essential that food, water,  arms and ammunition, and reinforcements be taken to Khara. An even greater humanitarian imperative was to rescue the injured soldiers. As such, the pressure I faced was mounting. 

***  

Army choppers had started flying in Khara’s skies from early  morning on April 8. Army pilot Pratigya Rana, a careful pilot and a  good friend of mine, had repeatedly tried landing an MI-17 helicopter  at the basecamp, but in vain. 

As I was preparing to fly from Nepalgunj to Musikot in the  afternoon, I got news that an MI-17 helicopter had been shot. Earlier  in the morning, we had news that another chopper—Lancer, flown  by Major Subash Thapa—had been struck by bullets. Lancer, a small  helicopter made specifically for war, has guns pointing out from both  sides. 

Major Thapa had risked landing the chopper in the barracks  premises while simultaneously firing bullets and dropping bombs. But  he was forced to fly back to Musikot after his chopper was struck by  Maoist bullets.  

Major Thapa was also one of the most careful and intelligent pilots  that the Nepal Army had. But when his helicopter was hit, army  officers sank deep into despair. 

They warned me to be alert. I had set off from Nepalgunj at around 1. Communicating with me via their radio set, they said, “The Maoists  have used long-range weapons. It’s risky, you might get shot. Exercise  caution.”  

Some army officers even expressed surprise that a civilian would take  such a risk. “We serve in the army and are compelled to do this. You are  a civilian. Why do you put your life at risk?” a ranger asked me. 

Whenever I heard such comments, I used to get more determined  about turning the soldiers’ despair into my motivation. Maybe I  inherited my ancestors’ bold and courageous traits. Their legacy would  not survive if I could not play hide-and-seek with risk. That’s partly  why I had become accustomed to taking risks. 

In the initial days of the Maoist ‘people’s war’, I got involved in  it as a commercial pilot flying for the Nepal Police. When the war  intensified, the state eventually decided to deploy the army to fight the  rebels. This pushed private helicopter companies and pilots like us into  a very difficult situation.  

As risks increased, some of these companies balked, but I felt it  was wrong to help when conditions are easy and walk away when they  are tough. So I did not shy away from risks and kept carrying out  humanitarian rescues in the decade-long ‘people’s war’. 

I rescued not only state security personnel, but did not hesitate to  rescue injured Maoist combatants either. On some occasions, I even  rescued rebel fighters without letting the security personnel know. 

*** 

Once I was in Dolpa with foodstuffs, ammunition, etc. for the Nepal  Police. A local businessman from Dunai, who supplied foodstuffs and  other essential items to the police and the army, asked me if I could  take a sick woman to Surkhet. The woman was frail and was dressed in  rags. Her name was Satya Pahadi and she was a Maoist cadre. 

The security personnel did not hear about it at all. 

Despite knowing that she was a Maoist cadre, I was willing to  fly her to Surkhet. I thought a sick person’s first necessity is medical  treatment. It’s also a natural right. I felt she should not be deprived of  treatment.  

As the helicopter was packed, I put her in the cockpit and dropped  her in Surkhet. Before we parted ways, she gave me her phone number.  I even called the number a couple of times to inquire after her. But  the calls did not go through. But five years later, after the Maoists  joined the peace process, she called me—as the minister for peace and  reconstruction. 

She had been appointed the minister in 2011 under the coalition  government led by Dr Baburam Bhattarai. I don’t know why, but she  called me on the very day of her appointment and reminded me of the day I took her to Surkhet. Pahadi is married to Shakti Bahadur Basnet,  a lawmaker elected in the 2017 elections from the district of Jajarkot. (He later became the Minister for Forest and Environment.) 

*** 

While on the surface it looked like I was working for the state,  my priority was humanitarian rescue, because unlike the security  personnel, I was not mobilized to fight the Maoists. My role as a  humanitarian rescuer was akin to that of a doctor who is solemnly  bound to treat all patients. Once I dedicated my career to flying, I  thought (and still think) of rescue work as my duty. 

While the Khara combat was going on, the victory or defeat of one  particular side was not my primary concern. Rather, I had thought  that taking food and water to those who needed them and rescuing  the soldiers who were on the brink of death were humanitarian—and  thus my primary—concern. 

*** 

The combat had not ended when I reached Khara in the afternoon.  There were Maoist guerrillas on the high hills surrounding the barracks,  ready with long-range weapons to strike at army helicopters. Their  sole aim was to prevent the choppers from landing at the barracks.  They had probably calculated they would win the battle if they could  prevent reinforcements from coming. And they seemed to be acting  accordingly. 

Two copters had already been shot. Army pilots were losing hope  they could land at the basecamp. I faced a colossal challenge. I wanted  to land a chopper at the Khara basecamp at any cost. 

Khara, which is at an altitude of approximately 6,000 feet from sea  level, connects Rukum, Salyan, and Rolpa. To its east lies the village  of Simrut, to its west Jhulneta, to its north Muru, and to its south  Dalsingh. Musikot, the district headquarters, is about 5 km west of  Khara.

From Nepalgunj, I first flew to Musikot. Other choppers were at  the barracks in Bohoragaun; I couldn’t find a place there and landed  mine at Musikot airport, where a few army officers were present. 

Their radio sets were constantly buzzing. I could hear the soldiers  who were still fighting, asking for reinforcements. 

People in the nearby Musikot bazaar were terrified and therefore  very quiet. The sounds of the firing and explosions had added to the fear. 

I communicated with Division Chief Dipak Bikram JBR, who  was at Musikot barracks. “Captain Thapa, you are our last hope!” His  request and confidence in me added to my sense of duty. 

All eyes were on me because my team was considered the last  option. Everyone was hoping we would fly. “The injured are about to  die. We have run out of food. There is a shortage of water. We need  ammunition, or the Maoists will capture the basecamp…” was what  we could hear from the radio sets. 

My mind was turbulent, and I was questioning myself: “Why did  I come here? Is it not to rescue the soldiers? Have I really served my  purpose?” 

After being buffeted by a barrage of questions, I was gradually filled  with a unique sense of energy and courage. Finally, I resolved to land  at the Khara security basecamp. 

Just as I was making a sketch of the area and asking the commanders  of the ranger force to take their seats on the two sides of the chopper,  I got a call on my cell phone from AIG Rajendra Bahadur Singh. He  said, “If we don’t have reinforcements in the next 20 to 30 minutes, the  Maoists will capture Khara.” This made me more impatient. Without  wasting another minute, I made my way to the helicopter. 

I asked the 20 rangers to sit on two sides of the chopper so as to  maintain balance. We loaded the chopper with ammunition and flew. The soldiers had aimed long-range weapons out from the  helicopter’s windows. I had asked them to resist using the weapons  as far as possible. “Fire your weapons only if the Maoists shoot at the helicopter,” I had told them. But when the Maoists started firing  indiscriminately at the chopper, the soldiers started firing back. I instructed co-pilot Kiran Thapa to stay calm and monitor the  radio signals, but did not offer him details on how I was going to land.  On the hills close to the Khara basecamp, I could see Maoist guerrillas  ready to shoot at helicopters. So it would have been extremely risky to  fly close to those hills. 

“Alpha, Bravo…” I was constantly hearing such phrases on the radio. Because the  Maoists had made off with the army’s radio sets, I could hear their  conversations, yells and groans. I could also hear them say, “The bird’s  here, strike.” 

The Maoist fighters referred to helicopters as birds. Firing—at and  from the helicopter—continued unabated. I took it to an abnormal  altitude—an unusual state in which the chopper looks wobbly from the  ground, as if it’s about to crash—in an attempt to confuse the Maoists. 

My chopper was at an altitude of about 7,000 ft. In normal  situations, landing takes place at a normal speed. But at that moment,  the helicopter was directly above the helipad and was descending at a  high speed. I made a vertical descent and landed the chopper on the  barracks premises. 

I had calculated that even if the Maoists fired at the helicopter, they  would miss because of the high speed. That turned out to be the right  calculation. All their attempts were in vain. The copter landed safely.  

The soldiers got out fast and started taking positions. They also  started unloading the ammunition. The injured were being loaded  onto the chopper. I could not get out of the cockpit, but I looked  around. The ground was strewn with corpses. It was a heart-rending  scene. I flew back to the Musikot airport with some injured soldiers. 

Later, I flew back to Khara with reinforcements. Afterward, other  army choppers also landed there. Copters that had been hit with  bullets and were put away in the barracks started flying after regular  maintenance.

Finally the Maoist guerrillas who had surrounded the Khara  basecamp started retreating. They were forced to do so after we  dropped arms and ammunition and almost 150 additional soldiers at  the barracks. 

When I was back in Nepalgunj, I saw Division Chief General  Dipak Bikram JBR. “You saved Khara from being overrun,” he said  while patting my shoulder in a sign of appreciation. “Now we can look  to His Majesty for approval.” 

He added, “Only army personnel are eligible for the Nepali Tara  medal. Despite being a civilian, your contribution is no smaller than  that of a soldier. I will recommend you for Nepali Tara.” 

“I didn’t do it for a medal, General. I took the risk for humanitarian  reasons and as a duty to the nation. I don’t need a medal,” I replied. Rana did not say anything in response; he just kept patting my  shoulder. 

AIG Rajendra Bahadur Singh and Home Secretary Chandi Prasad Shrestha also called and congratulated me. 

*** 

I returned to Kathmandu two days after the Khara rescue. Army  Chief Pyar Jung Thapa invited me over to his official residence at  Shashi Bhawan for breakfast. He seemed extremely happy with my  work. “You have done a great job,” he said enthusiastically. “Your  courageous work has salvaged the army’s honor.” 

During breakfast, CoAS Thapa also expressed concern over my  security. He thought I could have incurred the ire of the Maoists  because of my involvement at Khara, and he offered me a place at  Shashi Bhawan. I expressed gratitude for his kindness but told him  that I would remain safe outside as well. 

*** 

While more than 250 Maoist combatants lost their lives in the April 7 Khara attack, only three army personnel were killed.

It was the Maoists’ second attack on Khara. Earlier, the Maoists had  attacked Khara and Damachaur (Salyan) simultaneously on 27 May 2002 and had suffered a terrible defeat in which they lost about 150  combatants. The first defeat at Khara had forced the Maoists to reassess  their military strategy. The second failure became a turning point for  them, one which compelled them to give up their violent movement. 

*** 

Even after the Maoists joined the peace process, various reports  and investigative news stories on their military strategy have been  published. 

Journalist Bhojraj Bhat has written: ‘Fierce army action following the Khara attack forced the Maoists  to change their old strategy. King Gyanendra’s growing ambition to  rule unilaterally also played a part in making Prachanda softer toward  parliamentary parties and India. What is surprising is that immediately  after Khara, Prachanda sent Baburam, who was facing action from the  party, to Delhi together with Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the head of the  Maoists’ foreign affairs department. The parliamentary parties and the  Maoists got closer after that. And four months later, the Maoists held  the Chunbang meeting, which paved their way to the peace process.’ (20  Feb 2011, Nepal weekly) 

*** 

From the eyes of a pilot who saw and experienced the ‘people’s  war’ first-hand, the battle of Khara was indeed a turning point for the  Maoists, after which their path diverted away from war. They eventually  joined the peace process and are now part of mainstream politics. 

During the decade-long Maoist ‘people’s war’, I reached many  places for rescue and reinforcements. I saw the combat and the fresh  battlefields up close. I experienced the country’s pain and tears when  one Nepali shed the blood of another. The war days are etched in my  memory in layers.

Many attempts were made to bring Nepali society, which was  trapped in a cycle of violence and counter-violence, back to peace.  Many individuals, parties, organizations and power centers have played  important roles in this. The Maoists abandoned the ‘people’s war’ and  were drawn into peaceful politics through mutual understanding and  cooperation with parliamentary parties. Behind this are many reasons—national, international and geopolitical. 

It was the helicopters that forced the Maoists to retreat at Khara.  The choppers’ role had been much appreciated. When I look back, I  feel that the risk I took was worthwhile.

Excerpt from the book ‘Into the Fire’ by Capt Rameshwar Thapa. This book, an essential reference on the decade-long armed conflict in Nepal, is grounded in hard facts and is set to launch on Aug 31