There are a lot of imponderables. If you look at the history, the Pakistanis started the operations on October 22 and they reached Baramulla on October 25. They wasted 48 hours, looted Baramulla. Suppose they had not done this, they would have reached Srinagar the same day. If they had come straight, the question would have been decided even before the Indian Army arrived.

Then on October 27, the Sikh I was the first unit to go under the command of Diwan Ranjit Rai. They made contact with the Pakistani raiders at the outskirt of Baramulla itself.

At that time, Rai had only 300 men and 100 had been left to protect the airport. He had only 200 men with him while the raiders were 6,000 or 7,000. When the raiders saw the Indian troops and tried to outflank them; in the operation Rai was killed.

By October 29, the Indian Army had fallen back and taken position in a place called Patan, half way between Baramulla and Srinagar. They were holding the enemy, but it was found that we were too weak on the ground, we could easily be by-passed and the raiders could easily make it to Srinagar.

So, the decision was taken to form a close defence of Srinagar and fall back on a place called Shalatang, which was then at the outskirts of the city (today in part of the city). It was at that time that the raiders decided to attack the airfield, leaving Shalatang and by-passing by the left (if you look at a map).

These are some of the imponderables.

If the raiders had acted differently to what they did, they would have got in Srinagar and later the airfield and we would not have been able to build our strength.

In fact, we later went on a counter-offensive, but it was only on November 7, that we could build the strength to do so. The situation had been critical at that time.