By Valmiki Faleiro Panjim, the present capital of a once glorious Estado da Índia with its seat in the 'City of Goa' (now Old Goa), capitulated on the evening of 18 December 1961, but 2 Sikh LI had no orders to cross the river and enter Panjim to accept surrender and disarm the Portuguese soldiers.
That task was assigned to 63 Infantry Brigade of 17 Infantry Division, the main task force. Maj Gen KP Candeth GOC 17 Infantry Division, who was in Molem, could not be contacted. Brigadier Sagat Singh was also incommunicado. 2 Sikh LI had to harbour for the night at Betim -- agonisingly so near, yet so far, with just a navigable river in between. 2 Sikh LI of 50 Para Brigade, as planned, was to change command from HQ 17 Infantry Division to come under the direct command of HQ Southern Command with the issue of the code word SUGAR LOAF. The loaf turned unsavoury before the nickname could be issued. It would be a tragic night. While Major SS Sidhu was away taking the ceasefire letter of the Portuguese garrison in Panjim brought by Msgr. Gregório Magno de Souza Antão to his Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Cherian at the Betim hilltop -- and trying to contact HQ 50 Para Brigade and Brigadier Sagat Singh for permission to enter Panjim and accept the surrender -- his troops captured two men who claimed to be demobilised local soldiers from a village that lay on the route his squadron would take the next morning. To check the antecedents of the two men, Major Sidhu decided to reconnoitre up to the village (Reis Magos/Verem). Leaving in a Dodge 15 cwt truck with five officers, three other ranks and the two prisoners at 10.30 pm, he released them after they were identified by residents. But another local told Major Sidhu that 50 to 60 political prisoners held at Aguada jail would be killed that night by the five or six Portuguese soldiers guarding them. In sheer humanitarianism, Major Sidhu rushed without preparation but with the informer to set free the prisoners. It happened that the jail, with 120 prisoners, was held by a platoon of Companhia de Caçadores No. 8 (C.Cac.8, or Company of Hunters No. 8) headed by 2/Lt Casimiro José Pereira Pinto with 8 soldiers and 28 military prisoners, armed with rifles, LMGs, a MMG, 2” mortars and grenade launchers -- and no written orders from Panjim to surrender. (Captain of Ports, Comandante Abel de Oliveira had earlier sent a river launch to fetch the platoon of C.Cac.8 but 2/Lt Pereira Pinto asked for a written order to leave the fort.) Around 11.30 pm, 2/Lt Pereira Pinto was going to his residence within the fort when he saw the headlights of the Dodge. He came to the gate. The visitors outside the gate said they were Portuguese-Goans from the police post at Betim but could not answer the password. According to Portuguese records, 2/Lt Pereira Pinto then heard the sound of loading of arms. He ordered his troops to open fire. From within the Aguada gate, the Portuguese used all they had. It was a reverse situation from that obtaining in the rest of Goa. Here were 37 well-armed Portuguese soldiers versus nine Indian soldiers not appropriately armed for the occasion. The Dodge 15 cwt truck which contained explosives was hit by a grenade and detonated and Major SS Sidhu and his equally young Captain Vinod K Seghal and one other rank lost their lives. Two officers and one other rank, wounded but not seriously, limped to the camp at 3.30 am. A troop of AMX tanks, a troop of Stuarts and two rifle troops reached Aguada at 5.30 am. After an exchange of machine gun fire, the Portuguese garrison surrendered at 7.30 am. (Second Lieutenant Pereira Pinto was later decorated with a Medalha de Cruz da Guerra de 2a Classe, a war medal, in Portugal. Fate of the local informer was not known.) Unbeknownst to 2 Sikh LI, seeing their spectacularly swift advance (and the slow progress of 63 Infantry Brigade), Tactical HQ Southern Command partly modified the plan and gave the capture of Panjim to 50 Para at around 10 pm on 18 December 1961. Orders were conveyed over the radio relay link, but Brigadier Sagat Singh was away visiting 2 Para at Ponda that night (he reportedly spent the night in the temple area of Mardol -- codenamed Coca Cola and Mangueshi -- codenamed Sabzi Mandi). Hence, Lieutenant General Chaudhuri personally spoke to the Brigade Major of 50 Para, who had to wait for the return of Brigadier Sagat Singh to issue orders authorising 2 Sikh LI to enter Panjim, as per the chain of command. It was not the only occasion that Brigadier Sagat Singh was out of contact. Earlier the same day, 18 December 1961, Tactical HQ Southern Command lost contact with him perhaps because of the swift advance of his brigade and sent an IAF Harvard from Sambra-Belgaum to 'drop' a message to the Brigadier (more on that hilarious 'airdrop' later). Major General VK Singh provides an interesting backstage account in his book, Leadership in the Indian Army: Biographies of Twelve Soldiers. It relates how Major General (later Lieutenant General) RN Batra, after his promotion from Brigadier and appointment as Director Signals and Signal Officer-in-Chief in May 1961, visited HQ 17 Infantry Division in Belgaum and 50 Para Brigade at the concentration area in Sawantwadi a few days before the ops began. Major General RN Batra and Brigadier Sagat Singh were good friends. Brig Sagat Singh "had learned that 17 Division had been given some radio relay sets for their rearward communications to Belgaum. He asked Raj [Maj Gen RN Batra] to also give a radio relay detachment to his brigade, as the existing arrangements were unreliable. "Raj told Sagat that the C41/R22 radio relay sets [imported from the UK] had been introduced in the army very recently, and had still to be blooded. Only one section had been raised, which was directly under the control of Army HQ. Four sets had been supplied to 17 Infantry Division for trials while four were kept for training purpose at the Signal Training Centre at Jabalpur. These also comprised the GS reserve, and he could not give them to Sagat. “Sagat was not to be shaken off so easily. He asked Raj what sort of a friend he was, if he could not do this small favour. Raj thought for a moment, and then agreed to give the sets. But he told Sagat that he would have to arrange to pick them up from Jabalpur, and return them after the operation in one piece. "Within minutes of assuring Raj that this would be done, Sagat got through to the Parachute Training Centre at Agra and got them to send an aircraft to Jabalpur the same day to pick up the sets. They reached Sagat just a day before he moved to the assembly area at Dodamarg. "By a stroke of good luck, his signal officer, Major (later Colonel) R.R. Chatterjee, found there was a permanent line route of the P&T Department running past Dodamarg. This was patched to the rear terminal of the radio relay link, and enabled the brigade exchange to get through to Belgaum..... The orders for his brigade to capture Panjim were conveyed to him on the radio relay link, because 17 Infantry Division's communications had broken down". (Singh, 2005, Ninth Printing 2012, Page 245). After the ops, P&T Department asked Major RR Chatterjee for an explanation as to how a civilian line was used without its permission! -- Excerpted from revised text of the book, Patriotism In Action: Goans in India’s Defence Services by Valmiki Faleiro, first published in 2010 by ‘Goa,1556’ (ISBN: 978-93-80739-06-9). Revised edition awaits publication.