Murree Hills becomes the concealed setting for a clandestine military camp, where three young soldiers are recruited into the Canine Unit for Tracking and Intelligence Activities (CUTIA). The site’s isolation and official denial make it more than a backdrop: it is where the novel’s account of the soldiers begins, on the eve of a national crisis that will carry them far from the hills.

Hidden camp

Before the 1970 election and the conflict between West and East Pakistan, three soldiers arrive at a camp in Murree Hills. The narrator describes it as absent from maps and set too far from the Murree road for passing motorists to hear its dogs. Camouflaged fencing surrounds it, and its gate displays neither a name nor an emblem.

The camp’s secrecy is reinforced by its later denial. After the fall of Dacca, the defeated Tiger Niazi rejects the very idea of CUTIA when questioned by his old friend, India’s victorious General Sam Manekshaw. The narrator insists that the camp existed despite this official repudiation, setting private testimony against the public account.

Recruitment into CUTIA

At the camp, Brigadier Iskandar addresses the new recruits: Ayooba Baloch, Farooq Rashid, and Shaheed Dar. He tells them they are now a CUTIA unit, then leaves them on the parade ground. The three stand rigidly at attention, embodying the obedience expected of the unit; Brigadier Iskandar’s batman, Lala Moin, identifies their assignment as handling a man-dog.

The scene marks the start of the soldiers’ service in a specially organized unit whose stated name expands to Canine Unit for Tracking and Intelligence Activities. The camp’s isolation, the recruits’ abrupt induction, and the unseen dogs together make the setting a threshold between ordinary military life and the secret work that will shape their wartime narrative.

Narrative and historical significance

Murree Hills enters the story just before the 1970 election, which the narrator frames as a prelude to the country’s division and the war between its western and eastern wings. The narrative thus moves from a hidden camp to a public political rupture: the recruits’ posting begins away from the public stage, while the events that will overtake them become part of the nation’s history.

The camp’s existence is presented through a deliberate tension between concealment and insistence. Its missing map symbols and denied status could make it disappear from official memory; the narrator counters that erasure by naming the place, the unit, the recruits, and their commander. Murree Hills consequently anchors a strand of the novel concerned with military secrecy and the gap between what is officially acknowledged and what the narrative claims occurred.