of 8 December, moving in broad daylight the preceding day. The first contact made by the raiders with the Pakistani soldiers was at 1:30 AM. Hand-to-hand combat between the Indian raiders and the Pakistanis ensued, followed by gunfights. Soon, Virawah was captured by the Indian raiders. The raiders then proceeded to Nagarparkar and captured it by the morning of 8 December. Following this, the Indian raiders had returned to their base in India but were again tasked to attack an ammunition dump in Islamkot. The raiders reached their target at 5:30 AM on 17 December but found the target empty. Subsequently, while retreating, the raiders ambushed a Pakistani convoy, killing 18-20 Pakistani troops and imprisoning survivors. Operation Bluestar 1984 In 1984 the Para (SF) were involved in Operation Blue Star. They were charged to lead an attack to evict Sikh militants hiding inside the Holy Site of the Sikh religion the Golden Temple Punjab. 80 members of 1 Para (SF) were given the task of assaulting two areas of the temple, one of which required divers. However, there were a number of setbacks as a result of inaccurate intelligence on the strength of the militants who were trained by Gen. Shabeg Singh (ex-1 Para himself), operating in low light, the conventional manner of the raid, and the lack of incentive, all of which resulted in a mission failure. The diver mission was aborted after the first team got bogged down. The commandos accompanied by Raghunath Dubey achieved their aims after a gunfight with militants that lasted hours. Sri Lanka 1987 The late 1980s saw the Para (SF) in action in Sri Lanka, as part of Operation Pawan. However, the lack of proper planning by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPF), and insufficient intelligence on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) whereabouts, caused the initial heli-borne assault on Jaffna University on 11 October 1987 to be a tragic failure. However it was because of the efforts of the Para (SF) that later led to the capture of the Jaffna peninsula, forcing the LTTE militants to take refuge in the forests. Six soldiers lost their lives in that mission. Due to their superior training, the Para (SF) took refuge under a house, after they were misled by a youth who offered his services to help the commandos track Velupillai Prabhakaran but instead took them on a wild goose chase. They engaged