More on the shoddily treated Police Inspector/Army Captain Mukhtiar Singh s/o Sodagar Singh. It was a week before Chinese New Year at the height of the Emergency and residents of villages in and around Kuala Kubu were busy preparing for the occasion. They went about cautiously, knowing that only four communists terrorists remained in the area and security forces were carrying out operations in in the nearby jungle. The villagers had almost completed their preparations to usher in the Year of the Pig in 1957 two days before. In the Operations Room at the Kuala Kubu Police Station, several army and police top brass were mapping out strategies to "get" the four terrorists, after which the whole state of Selangor would be declared a White Area. It was decided that the army would cover the area north of Sungai Selangor while the police would take the south to flush out the terrorists. At 4 am that day, Temporary Inspector Mukhtiar Singh and his platoon of 30 men left for the Sungai Gantung area. TI Mukhtiar knew the terrorists frequently crossed the Sealangor river in search of food when they were harassed by security forces. After he had identified these spots, his platoon broke up into groups of four and each was assigned to mount an ambush in one area. TI Mukhtiar himself led a five-member foot patrol. At 5 pm they were returning to base after a hard day's walk in the primary jungle when the scout noticed some movements ahead.
They crawled to the spot only to find four bags which on inspection, were found to contain weapons, clothes, immediately established as belonging to the terrorists. There was no time to waste and the police group followed the trail which led towards the river. TI Mukhtiar knew that the terrorists would break for one of the crossing spots and fired a few shots in the air. The plan worked. As the CTs ran towards the crossing point, the ambush party opened fire. In the burst of fire, one CT was killed, another injured and a third, armed with a rifle stood by the river bank, protecting his injured comrade. He was a sitting duck as far as TI Mukhtiar was concerned, but he decided otherwise. "If we get him alive, we could interrogate him and get more information on communist terrorist activities," he thought to himself. So intead of opening fire he shouted to the lone gunman. The echo so surprised the CT that the rifle he was holding slipped and fell into the river.
As TI Mukhtiar and his party approached the terrorist, the man shoued: "I don't want to live, kill me now." They had a closer look at his injured comrade who turned out to be a woman. TI Mukhtiar's platoon had only accounted for three CTs. The fourth had disappeared but surrendered the following day at the Kerling police station. For his astute planning, courage and initiative, TI Mukhtiar was awarded the Colonial Police Medal for Gallantry in Action on the occasion of the birthday of Queen Elizabeth.
His was a household name during the Emergency and when it finally ended in 1960, he had 18 "kills" to his credit. "Yes, those were the days when CTs frightened people and threatened the security of the nation. We fought them and we beat them," recalled Mukhtiar, now a security officer in a large public limited company. His career with the security forces which spanned 29 years, came about by accident.

Continued here.....

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