A Trip into Inner Sanctums of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

PROLOGUE:

Our Wakefield Gardens farmhouse is located on the border of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) provinces. This geographical position on the fringes of two provinces could be visualised from the fact that while our farmhouse itself is situated in KPK, the entrance gate to the Wakefield Gardens Farms that it is part of, is in Punjab. It may not therefore be surprising that we move into and out of KPK province several times during a day on a routine basis. Even though we are in close proximity of Taxila, the 2500 years old ancient metropolis, which now is an archaeological site as well as an urban centre of Punjab, we are still far away from other notable population centre of KPK. The nearest KPK cities on one side are Nowshera, Mardan and Peshawar and on the other Haripur and Abbotabod. Ever since we started living in KPK and consequently residing at our Lychee Grove farmhouse some eight years earlier, we have endeavoured at any available opportunity to venture out and visit places of interest in the province we live. This edition of my blog is a travelogue of our visit to Jallozai and further on to Cherat, the home of Special Services Group (SSG) of Pak Army. On our way we travelled on Jallozai-Shamshtto road before turning towards Cherat on Pabbi-Cherat road. This story of our traverse describes the agricultural irrigation based on solar water tube wells installed all along the Jallozai-Shamshtto Road and developments taking place in the recently established economic zone of Jallozai that till recently was known only for the Afghan refugee camp that existed there ever since the huge influx of Afghans in the post 9/11 era. Travelling further south on the Cherat road, its a hinterland culminating in the SSG Eagle's Nest. The Eagle's Nest, as it is called, is not a public place by any stretch of imagination.  We could visit it only through permission and by virtue of an advanced appointment. We stayed at the centre overnight and were shown around the facilities used for the training of our famous commandos who are among the best in the world rankings. Our stay at the SSG Officers Mess provided a great opportunity besides, to enjoy nature as it is also a declared wild life reserve and sanctuary.  The lodgings at the SSG officer's mess also provided us with a rare family retreat at the top of the hill resort that it too is. That atmosphere of togetherness that it offered to our larger family comprising children and grand children provided a source of great enjoyment. That accordingly too is a part of this blog.

ON OUR WAY

Saturday 5, August 2017

When ever and where ever we go to visit and see places, it is more often than not, in accompaniment of our larger family comprising ourselves and those of our children. This time it was not going to be any different. The family of our eldest son Hasan joined us at our farmhouse a day earlier from Lahore, where Hasan has senior executive job at a major bank. Our third son Saad and his family lives in Chaklala, Rawalpindi. He is a Principal Scientist at a national R&D organisation. He and his family joined us just before our departure early in the morning. Our second son Omar who actually made all the arrangements, for this trip, as he does for all others, came with his family from Mardan where he is posted as a Radiologist in the rank of Major at the Punjab Regimental Centre. Omar and his family joined us on the way. Our fourth son Taha and his family lives in Canada and on that count could not join us but when ever he is visiting us, we make it a point to take him and his family too to places we go to. Other members of our larger family are the little dog Teamer whom we call just Team and the Geese who have only recently joined us at our farmhouse and are named Oscar, Pixi and Sophie. We were forced to leave them behind in good care of our farmhouse caretaker.

Hasan and kids chasing geese at the Farm

Travelling together brings us close to each other. We on such occasions not only live and eat in an ensemble but also laugh in unison besides exchanging anecdotes, jokes and stories of the past in the company of of our grand children, who in the process grow up learning about the family and places we had lived. Had this not been possible they would not know how lively and enjoyable or for that matter occasionally difficult the circumstances were for their parents and grand parents and what was it really like when their parents too were children like themselves. We provide them this opportunity to explore the world around them and to learn about people and places in a family environment. This opportunity is also available to them at our farmhouse when wTre are not visiting or going any where. We believe the best memories are created when families do fun things together and we believe every day is an opportunity to create new stories just like the one, we are about to knit now.

The family of Hasan comprised, his wife Tania and daughters Eemaan and Avizheh while the household of Saad consisted of his wife Sahar and daughters Inaya and Ne'ma while that of Omar besides himself, his wife Sadaf, sons Hamza and Yahya and the daughters Hiba and Rahma. 

Just before departure from our farmhouse

From our perspective the easiest and most convenient way to escape into Khber Phakhtunkhwa heartland is the Islamabad-Peshawar M1 motorway that we normally take at the nearby Bhater Interchange. For that we need to travel a short distance on the Grand Trunk Road passing by the Wah Cantonment and the sprawling New City, which is fast developing into a modern population complex complete with banks, shopping plazas and eateries besides beautiful villas in the midst of ample greenery. Although one normally would take a detour, we preferred to go through the city itself. While its entrance is on the GT road, the exit is on the link road leading to Attock-Fatehjang road. We had started very early in the morning and decided accordingly to  take breakfast at a road side driver hotel just before entering the motorway. Taking tea or snacks at such obscure places that may even be classified as shadowy is always part of the great feeling that one aspires to get free of the shackles of the civilised way of life and any inhibitions in that context.  The hotel was recommended to us by our son Saad who frequently travels in the area while going or coming back from his work place. He immediately ordered crisp parathas, egg omelettes and milk tea, which we thoroughly enjoyed helping ourselves with, sitting on charpoys.

The first part of our travel on motorway was uneventful until we arrived at the Rashakai exit and headed towards Nowshera. Before we arrived there we needed however to cross Kabul River flowing from Afghanistan towards the downstream Attock. The Attock is at the confluence of Rivers Indus and Kabul. While Indus fed from the snow clad mountains of Kashmir has crystal clear transparent waters, the river Kabul is quite muddy and almost black in colour. One can on that count clearly differentiate between the two waters even miles after they have actually merged together. We had earlier been to the Attock Fort and had witnessed the scene from top of that great fort built by the mughal king Akbar.

From Nowshera, which is the second largest city of KPK after Peshawar, we travelled on the GT Road (N5) towards Peshawar until we reached Azakhel Payan a little after the Pir Piayi railway station. At Azakhel Payan we turned on the Jallozai-Shamshtto road. Here, it can not go without mentioning that no body would need to tell you that you have entered KPK. It is obvious from the completely different scenes of people and traffic that move about as well as the sounds that lingers and prevails in air of people talking and even shouting on top of their voices. The fruits of all kind are ample, which hawkers peddle around unceremoniously. The main crop at the time of the year was corn and sugar cane. One could see both the rickety wooden trolleys with enclosed and covered stocks of steamed sweet corn that paddlers sold and the numerous road side sugar cane juice machines offering the iced sweet syrup, which provided instant energy and relief from hot sun to the passing by ordinary people.

TRAVEL ON JALLOZAI - SHAMSHTTO ROAD

The Jallozai-Shamshtto is the road that is routinely used by all the traffic that goes to and comes from the Cherat cement factory. It is not exactly a metalled road and may even be classified as a firm dirt road. We noticed on the left side of the road miles after miles of solar powered tube wells. The solar panels were conspicuous of their large numbers in sets of 20 and more. Each set was installed at a slightly different angular position pointing at the ever changing traverse of the sun. This, we understood was to make maximum utilisation of the sun even though some if them had the rotating mechanism that allowed them to follow the trajectory of Sun all along. We later learned that it was part of a Rs 300 million Solar Irrigation scheme of KPK. From the number of solar panels we estimated the solar driven power ranged from 10-20 kWh. These had been provided to the farmers under a 10 years long soft loan scheme. Seeing them working allowed us a great insight into the up lift development work that is conducted by the KPK Agricultural Department quietly without making a noisy publicity campaign characteristic of the adjacent Punjab. A work of great dedication and far sightedness in view of the lingering power shortage in the country, we thought! At the time we were passing by this sight of human endeavour, we noticed there was no crop standing on the fields and all the water that was being pumped out was fed into a cemented canal that transported water for crops elsewhere or for other uses. That clearly was a community based concept not commonly seen elsewhere in the country. We kept on driving and marvelling at the same time until we reached a turning on the left, which we soon discovered was going to the Cherat Cement Factory clearly not one of our destinations! A further short travel down the JS Road led us to join Pabbi-Cherat road. We turned left on this, which was clearly a much superior metalled road.

THE JALLOZAI ECONOMIC ZONE AND CAMPUS OF UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

Soon after coming on the Pabbi-Cherat road we looked for any remnants of famous Afghan refugee camp but there were none. Just to remind ourselves, it was one of the largest of 150 refugee or transit camps in P\\\\akistan, holding Afghan refugees from the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At that time it had an estimated 70,000 refugees at its peak. New Jalozai adjoined the original Jalozai camp in November 2000, taking in a new wave of arriving Afghan refugees. The camps briefly received an additional influx of refugees in the period after 9/11, leading up to the United States invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. After the fall of the Taliban, the vast majority of refugees in the Jalozai camp returned home or were relocated elsewhere. In February 2002, with a remaining population of 800, Jalozai camp was formally closed. 

Next we looked for the much heralded Jalozai Economic Zone (JEZ) that was said to be spread over an area of 257 acres on and around the road we were now travelling but there were no trace of that either when the JEZ does happens, it promises to provide the resident industrialists a one stop for all its amenities and facilitate them in focusing on their core functions of manufacturing, trading and entering into business ventures.

Following that, we arrived at an impressive conglomerate of buildings without however any name plate or board as to its identity. On the opposite side of the road there was a residential colony visibly marked and meant for the staff of an unnamed college of science and Technology. We conjectured from the nature of buildings on the other side that they must be the ones associated with the college in question. We learned later it was the Jallozai campus of UET Peshawar. The Campus was offering education to around 200 students in disciplines of Electrical, Mechanical, Civil and Industrial engineering until it was closed down for want of funds to ensure adequate security measures. Even though there was a perimeter steel security fencing topped with spiral razor barbed wire, it apparently had not opened and was perhaps still awaiting for enhanced security measures and consequently additional funds in that context. It may be mentioned that the Jallozai Campus is in addition to five other campuses of KPK University of Engineering & Technology. These namely are at Abbotabad, Kohat, Mardan, Bannu and Peshawar.

EAGLE'S NEST

Further on we passed by small hamlets of Dak Ismail Khel, Saleh Khana and Chapri as we continued to climb up the winding and exceedingly scenic road to the Cherat SSG camp.  The wide spread green landscape changed into a hilly terrain with dense forests of trees before we arrived at the Eagle's Nest check post, the entrance to SSG centre. After necessary clearance we drove up the mountain, which was the exclusive domain of SSG. After driving for 15 more minutes through continually increasing hilly slopes, we arrived at another check post, which quickly let us in and guided us to the Officers Mess, where the arrangements for our stay have been made. We found the mess and the adjoining living quarters quite comfortable. After lunch we proceeded for a detailed conducted tour of the centre that included visits to the British regimental badges carvings from late 19th century on a vertical stone hill wall, the training grounds, museum and an insight into ultimate survival in extreme conditions including exposure to loneliness and torture.

A large size SSG Insignia too was proudly erected in front of the regimental stone carvings, we saw earlier. The insignia comprised a dagger with a star on its blade and thunder bolts of lightening on its either side in a dark background. We were told  the SSG is called the ‘Black Storks’, due to the unique headgear worn by the soldiers.

SSG Insignia & Regimental Stone Carvings of 19th Century

Cherat is a hill station at an elevation of 4,500 feet on the west of the Khattak range, which divides the district of Nowshera from Kohat. During British rule Cherat was important as a hill cantonment and sanitorium for British troops. It was first used as a sanitorium for troops in 1861 and was declared subsequently as a cantonment in 1886. In addition to Sanitorium, the British built a church, and a few bungalows. The station was the headquarters of a Peshawar Division Command throughout the summer. The garrison numbered 1,000 men in those days. The cantonment commands a view of the whole of the Peshawar valley on one side, and on the other of a portion of the Khwarra valley in Peshawar District, and of Kohat District as far as the Indus. It was completely overcast during our entire stay making it impossible to take pictures of the surroundings with any degree of clarity.

While the British were here, they were susceptible to all kind of ailments from malaria to tuberculosis, for the treatment of which they built hospitals and Sanatoriums on hill stations like Muree and Cherat as well as many others. In those days mechanised transportation was not commonly available and sick used to be carried in palkis or in lying down position on charpoys. The distance between Pabbi and Cherat is 34 km and it must not have been easy to take the sick with little hope of him/her coming back alive. We accordingly saw a lot many graves scattered all around on top of the hill with the tomb stones still clearly recognisable and fully readable.

After we were shown the carvings of regimental badges on stone, we were conducted to the grounds where the trainee commandos do physical exercises, perform gymnastic routines and carry out extended trotting, galloping and running workouts but before that we were briefed on their selection procedures and criteria. We were told that SSG officers must have at least two years of prior military experience and volunteer from other formations for two-year assignments with the SSG; non-commissioned officers and enlisted men volunteer from other formations to serve permanently in the SSG. All trainees must participate in a nine-month SSG course at Cherat. The SSG course emphasizes physical conditioning, including a 50-mile march in 14 hours and a 12-mile run in under 1 hr 50 minutes. Following the SSG course, trainees must go through the airborne training to get their commando wings from the SSG Airborne School. The course lasts for four weeks, with wings awarded after five day-jumps and three night-jumps. After the completion of the basic commando course, the newly inducted commandos are put through their paces in the advanced commando course which runs an additional 25 weeks. Only at the end of these two grueling phases are operators considered to be integral members of the SSG. The SSG recruits get trained in hand-to-hand combat training and very hard physical fitness training; only about 5% of recruits make it through to the Pakistan SSG due to the very tough training course. 

After getting briefed as to the training and seeing the training site, we were taken to see the SSG Museum and finally to the survival training centre. This later part of our visit was most exciting. At the entrance to this centre there was a dark tunnel, which was used for intense and hard interrogation complete with violence inflicted from time to time on the trainee. This was done to deeply ingrained in his mind the worst kind of inquisition, questioning and probing that he could ever expect from the enemy.  During their survival skills training, commandos were taught how to build shelters, procure water, make fires, navigate, make traps and snares, track and finally obtain food from the available flora and fauna. “They were trained to catch snakes and even eat them if necessary. Similarly they were taught to eat birds and chickens raw and suck in the oozing blood from their severed necks. Shelters they make protect them from weather, insects, animals and enemy observation. A commando had to be an expert in building traps and snares to catch small animals and birds without losing surprise. “It takes lot more than knowledge and survival skills to live successfully through an arduous situation. While learning survival skill is important, having the will to survive is essential, without which these skills have no meaning, we were told. We were shown spaces built in grave for the trainee to hide to escape discovery by the enemy.

At the hurdles on the SSG Training Grounds

Our visit was conducted late on Saturday evening, which perhaps was an off day for the trainees, as we saw not a single SSG personnel out in the open except for the Subedar who conducted our visit dressed in his full uniform. Subedar in question was a Zarrar, a counter terrorist specialist who had participated in such operations as the Peshawar APS and Rawalpindi GHQ. We were informed by him that the Pakistan's elite SSG troops were top list of world’s most formidable special units. Coming in second on the list were Spain’s Naval Special Warfare Force, and was called as one of Europe’s best respected special forces. Next in line was Russia’s Naval Special Warfare Force ‘Alpha Group’, serving as the nation’s elite anti-terrorism unit. France’s fabled 200-strong National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), trained especially to respond to hostage situations, came in on four. Israel’s Sayeret Matkal made it to the fifth spot. The British Special Air Service (SAS), who have the famous motto ‘Who dares wins’, were listed on number six. The UK equivalent of the Navy SEALs, Special Boat Service, came in on number seven. The US Navy SEALS, a special unit of which carried out Operation Neptune Spear to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011 were listed on eight.

The Dreadful Unmanned Cafe in the 19th Century  Graveyard Used for SSG Wilderness Training

THE FAMILY NIGHT OUT AT SSG MESS

The SSG Officers Mess lies in a beautiful setting surrounded by lush green mountains. Apart from the trees that grow there naturally and have been there since ages, those who own the place and have made it their home too resolved to plant trees and take care of them religiously on a continuous basis. The SSG centre has therefore over the years transformed into a serene, cool and shady place.

Apart from the modern building structures housing the men's and ladies sitting rooms, dining hall, billiard room and kitchen facilities, there are separate single bed room cottages with attached bath rooms for officers and their families visiting the centre for the weekends and short durations. Even though during the day time it was fairly warm, the evening and night was much cooler prompting all and every one including the children for a noisy out door get together. 

ON OUR WAY BACK

Sunday 6, August 2017

We got up very early in the morning the next day to see the sun rise from behind the hills. The morning was cool and crisp. Being a Sunday it was very quiet and one could hear the chattering of birds. One group of birds, which we noticed in abundance and great numbers were the Martins or Swallows (Ababeels in Urdu).  These are small birds about 6 inches in length and mere 30 g in weight. They have adapted themselves to hunting insects while in air and flying by developing a slender, streamlined body and long pointed wings, which allow them great maneuverability and endurance. As we stood on the terrace we had flocks of them whizzing past us overhead. They were conspicuous of their tranquil sounds and screeches. The flight was fast and involved a rapid succession of turns and banks. They flew in circles with bursts of flapping mixed with gliding.

One especial attraction for us going outdoors is the wild life and a variety of birds in their natural habitats. The fact that the Martins make nests in the tree barks may have been the reason behind their being there in such a great number as it was all jungle and wood lands till our eyes could meet the horizon down below. 

The area around SSG centre was a declared wild life reserve. We were told about the wild life to comprise Leopard, Wild boars and Deers, which we failed to see except the wild boars whom we saw passing leisurely by our parked cars. They didn't take any notice of us before quietly disappearing in the jungle down in the ravine.

After breakfast we started preparing for our return journey. All packed up, we left at 11 A.M. As we drove back, it was as serene as it was on our way up just a day earlier but it seemed an eternity had elapsed since then. It felt as if we had been in a different world! We had in fact been through so much that it appeared unnatural to be returning to the world with which we even though were familiar yet not quite prepared to accept the harsh reality that we had returned or appropriately still, descended back to it. It was hot and sultry. There was same rush of people shouting and screaming and falling over each other to get to food stuff and the things of all sorts they aspired and lived for. So meaningless, we thought! Our minds and thoughts had changed overnight! We were going back to our farmhouse which still was a peaceful sanctuary free from noisy pollution of the cities. Teamer , Oscar, Pixi and Sophie were over joyed to have us back. We wouldn't however ever be able to tell them about the world we had been to. It was not far in the distance but distant it really was from many a perspective! Alas we probably will never be able to return back to it! Our grand children had had a glimpse of that, which sure will get ingrained in their memories.

We all were there (From Top to Bottom: Avizheh, Rahma, Nema, Hiba, Inaya, Hamza, Yahya & Eemaan)
(Saturday August 5, 2017)

From Beloved Dada & Dadi
(SSG Museum Cherat Aug 5, 2017)