Meet Colonel Hemonto Panging: 9 Para SF Officer Known as the Genghis Khan of the Indian Army

Colonel Hemonto Panging, SM & Bar (Retd.), is among the most formidable counter-insurgency officers to have served in the Indian Army’s 9 Para (Special Forces). Over a decade of operations in Assam and Jammu & Kashmir, he earned a reputation so uncompromising that terrorists and fellow soldiers alike came to know him as the “Genghis Khan” or “Chengiz Khan” of the Indian Army.

The moniker was not a media invention. It grew from a record of close-quarter actions, night raids, lone pursuits and cross-border missions that left little room for negotiation. In recent years, long-form interviews have brought his previously little-known operational history into public view. The officer himself has summarised his stance with characteristic brevity: “If you want to fear me, you must be a terrorist. For my nation, I carry my heart on my sleeve.”

Origins in East Siang

Colonel Panging hails from Namsing village near Pasighat in East Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh. He belongs to a family with a strong tradition of national service. A relative, Group Captain (Retd.) M. Panging Pao of the Indian Air Force, recorded some of his operations in The Arunachal Times in 2020. Another family member, Mohonto Panging Pao, an erstwhile fighter pilot, later congratulated him when he represented India in senior amateur golf.

He studied at Sainik School Imphal. At the National Defence Academy he entered as an Air Force cadet but switched to the Army because his elder brother was already a pilot. At the Indian Military Academy he boxed and recorded a knockout. He has said he knew from school days that he was “made for the Fauj.” In March 2025 he returned to the region to address cadets at Sainik School East Siang.

His mother was a teacher. His wife is a doctor. They have a daughter, Kiara, described as an academic high-achiever, and a son who plays golf. His parents are deceased. He has spoken of himself as a committed father as well as a soldier.

Infantry Years: 10 JAK Rifles and Assam

He was commissioned in 1991 into the 10th Battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles. Early postings took him to Assam during Operation Bajrang and Operation Rhino against the United Liberation Front of Asom. As a young officer he conducted lone operations, including the capture of two ULFA leaders; one account describes him bringing a militant back tied to a bicycle. He has also described walking nearly 25 kilometres into a militant-infested area armed only with a pistol, making contact at close range and pursuing the target for several more kilometres.

These early years established a pattern that later defined his Special Forces service: initiative, physical endurance and a willingness to operate ahead of the main body.

The Maroon Beret: 9 Para SF

Around 1995 he volunteered for 9 Para (Special Forces) and completed the unit’s exacting probation. 9 Para SF is one of the Army’s oldest and most operationally experienced Special Forces battalions, with a long record in Jammu & Kashmir. He has described the transition from regular infantry as a change in how one thinks, acts and trains.

He served multiple tenures in the Kashmir theatre, including Doda, during some of the most violent years of the insurgency. Colleagues from that period included officers such as Major Paramjit Singh Sangha and, most notably, Major Sudhir Kumar Walia, AC, SM & Bar, later known as the “Rambo of the Indian Army.”

Operations That Defined a Reputation

Two Sena Medals for gallantry mark the publicly documented core of his record.

Doda, 1993 (first Sena Medal, as Captain). A group of 20–25 terrorists was operating from a mountain hideout above the Chenab. While the main force advanced from below, a small team under Captain Panging infiltrated behind them. The team killed three terrorists in the opening assault. The remainder fled into a gorge. Panging’s team pursued and killed seven more, including two foreign terrorists. The action was regarded as a major success for the Army in Doda that year.

Bafliaz, 1997. His team captured the first shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile then held by terrorists in the area, killed five militants and thereby prevented a possible strike on Indian aircraft. The team suffered one fatal casualty and two wounded. He received a Chief of Army Staff commendation.

Cross-border night raid, 1997 (second Sena Medal, as Major). He led a 9 Para SF team across the Line of Control approximately four to five kilometres into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and attacked a terrorist launch pad beside a village. The night operation lasted about one hour and neutralised some 20 terrorists. Contemporaries have noted that such missions were not then publicly described as surgical strikes.

Other operations he has discussed include the Shahji mission, which he has called one of the most significant of his career and during which he came close to death; walnut-tree ambushes; night contacts in 1996; recovery of bodies under fire; and actions against increasingly professional militants trained by the ISI and Pakistan’s Special Services Group after 1997. He later commanded 1 Assam Rifles, drawing on his Northeast experience.

Over roughly ten years in Jammu & Kashmir he was credited with the elimination of a large number of terrorists. Exact official tallies are not published in open sources, which is typical for Special Forces service.

Brotherhood and Major Sudhir Walia

Colonel Panging has spoken at length about Major Sudhir Kumar Walia, who was killed in action in Kupwara in August 1999 and posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra. He has described Walia as the finest soldier he served with—a man whose weapon was an extension of himself and who would sit for two days on a thin wooden roof waiting for militants. A book by Panging on Walia has been reported as under preparation. The association places Panging within a small circle of 9 Para SF officers whose operational years in the mid-1990s remain a reference point inside the unit.

Why “Genghis Khan”

The nickname reflected method as much as results. Panging favoured infiltration, pursuit into difficult ground and rapid, decisive contact. Fellow officers reportedly used his name as shorthand when a situation required an uncompromising response. He has said that action matters more than words and that Special Forces training produces a different mental mobility. He has also stated that if born again he would join the Army and 9 Para SF once more.

After Service

Colonel Panging is retired. As of interviews recorded in 2025 and 2026 he described himself as recently retired. He now competes in senior amateur golf and represented India at an international tournament in Haiphong, Vietnam, in 2024. He appears in extended conversations on channels such as Monks & Warriors and The Syllabus of Life, and he addresses young cadets on discipline, patriotism and service. His public presence is modest: an Instagram account under the handle @colpanging, with the description “9 PARA I Golfer I SF Mindset.”

He has used those platforms to speak about Arunachal Pradesh’s record of military service and to encourage young people, particularly from the Northeast, to consider the armed forces.

A Record That Remained Quiet for Years

For much of his career, Colonel Panging’s operations were known mainly within the Special Forces community and in parts of Arunachal Pradesh. The 2020 article by Group Captain Panging Pao and the wave of interviews from 2025 onward have made the outline of that record available to a wider audience. Official gazette citations and complete posting particulars remain limited in the public domain, as is customary for officers of his background.

What is clear is the shape of the career: Sainik School and NDA; commissioning into 10 JAK Rifles in 1991; early combat in Assam; the maroon beret of 9 Para SF; two Sena Medals; a decade of counter-insurgency in Kashmir; and a reputation that terrorists themselves helped create. The officer from Namsing village became, for a generation of operators and adversaries, a name that meant the pursuit would not stop at the gorge or at the Line of Control.