Eleven days earlier, at 9.30 a.m on February2019, the chiefs of the Indian Armed forces and intelligence agencies, top ministers and the National Security Advisor arrived at Delhi's leafy 7, Lok Kalyan Marg compound where the Prime Minister of Indialives and sometimes operates from. It was far from a routine weekly meeting for the Prime Minister to take stock of the national security.

Eighteen hours earlier, 800 kilometres north, in the Lethapora area of Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, a vehicle packed with explosives and driven by a young man named Adil Ahmed Dar, had managed to snake between vehicles of a large comvey of srinagar- bound trucks carrying 2500 troops from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and rammed it. The explosion killed forty troops, spattering the highway with their blood and body parts. Minutes after the blast, a stream of pictures of the mangled vehicles and sickening carnage taken from mobile phones of locals and first responders flooded social media.

With the Pakistan- administered JeM group claiming responsibility for the attack, the Prime Minister had convened the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) solely to access how India could respond. Forty minutes later, the meeting was finished. Asked if air strikes on a terror target were a viable option, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa responded in the affirmative, also briefing the Cabinet Committee that the country's jets would be ready to strike with confirmed targets in a matter of days. He was given weeks.

From 16-20 February, the IAF worked with intelligence agencies at the operations room in Delhi's Vayu Bhawan. With National Security Advisor Ajit Doval receiving a daily update on proceeding, the deliberations were honed by satellite imagery, human intelligence from the ground in Pakistan and PoK, and photographs from a group of Heron drones flying daily missions along the Line of Control (LoC).

On 21 February, the IAF presented a classified set of 'targets tables' to the government via the National Security Advisor.

The first in the list of seven separate target options was a JeM terror training compound that sat on a hill called Jabba Top outside the city of Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The IAF recommended Balakot, just 100 km Pakistan's capital Islamabad, since it was a secluded target with the lowest probability of non-terrorist casualties. The two other 'viable' targets presented to the government were in PoK- Muzzafarabad, 23 km south-east of Balakot, and Chakothi about 70 km away. But these two, along with Bahawalpur, carried not just the risk of collateral damage, but a slightly higher chance of being hindered by Pakistani air defences. Among the remaining options was Murikde, north of Lahore, the city that held the headquarters of that other dreaded India- focused terror group, the Lasker-e-Taiba (LeT). This too was deemed a highly risky target to consider.

By midnight on 22 February, a highly controlled chain of command decided that the Indian jets would strike the first target in the list- the one outside Pakistan's Balakot. Every man and woman in the secret chain was aware that if such a mission went through, it would be India's first air strike on Pakistani soil since the 1971 war. What amplified the mission ahead was the two countries weren't at war in 2019.Could such a mission change that?

Salutations to the brave martyrs.

JAI HIND.

This is taken from the book India’s most Fearless 2 by Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh

Excerpts is a series where we post thoughtful passages from different books that provide for a quick and easy reading.