20 years ago, india and pakistan were on the battleground, amidst the war, now known as The Kargil War or the Kargil Conflict. It was an armed conflict that took place between india and pakistan from May to July of 1999. It took place in Kargil, which is tehsil of the Ladakh district, with isolated valleys and some of the world's highest mountains. The town is located 205 km away from srinagar, facing the northern areas along LoC.
The battle came to a conclusion on July 26, 1999, as Indian soldiers successfully captured the mountainous peak. the pakistan Army had captured by deceit.
Yes, india had a marvellous victory, credible to the jawans and the locals within that region but there were some sacrifices that went down in history, during the war, which still leave us absolutely speechless, whenever we think of them. Captain Saurabh Kalia's sacrifice for the country was one of them.
Captain Saurabh Kalia was from amritsar, Punjab, and was selected for the Indian Military Academy through Combined Defence Services exam conducted by the UPSC and was commissioned in 1998. His first posting was in the 4th battalion, Jat Regiment, in the Kargil sector in the January of 1999, a few months before the war broke out.
(c)Indiatimes
When Tashi Namgyal, a local shepherd saw some men wearing militancy outfits, breaking stones and carrying weapons in the Kargil region, he notified Saurabh Kalia and his team, who started patrolling the area in question. Saurabh Kalia and his team found a large-scale infiltration around the winter-vacated Indian posts, from the pakistan Army, who were disguised as militants and not army men. He was immediately posted at the Bajrang post thereon to check the infiltration in the Kaksar area along with five other soldiers – Sepoys Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram, and Naresh Singh.
May 15, 1999, Saurabh and the 5 soldiers went to patrol the Bajranj Post and the first encounter between the pakistan Armed forces and 6 Indian soldiers happened right there. After continuous cross-fire, Indian soldiers, because they were outnumbered, ran out of ammunition and were captured by the Pakistani Army.
Because Pakistani infiltration around that area was unexpected, the Indian soldiers didn't have enough warfare to win against the larger troop and hence they were defeated and carried to the pakistan camps, across the border. Only after these six soldiers were captured did india realise the immense strategic infiltration within Indian mountainous peaks, by the Pakistani Armed forces and that's when a proper war broke out between india and pakistan, at Kargil.
(c)IANS
While in captivity, the 6 soldiers went through immense torture and humiliation, something that india clearly hadn't expected. They were in captive for about 20 days, between 15th May and 7th June before they were each shot dead. The post-mortem conducted on the soldiers stated some brutal facts.
All the soldieries were tortured with burnt cigarette marks all over their body, hot-rods were used to pierce their ear lobes, all their teeth and bones were almost broken and their eyes were punctured, before they were removed. Their lips, nose and genitals were cut off and their nails were pulled off, before they were finally shot in the head.
A week later, Saurabh Kalia and the 5 other soldier's mutilated bodies were sent to their families, so they could be cremated.
When the bodies reached, the Deputy High Commissioner of pakistan was summoned and a notice of breach of the Geneva Convention was submitted to him, for torture and killing of the Prisoners of War during the Kargil War.
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