Kargil War Thread - VI

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chaanakya
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by chaanakya »

Karan M wrote:
AdityaM wrote:One of the Pakis who killed Lt Saurabh Kalia:

This scumbag should be hunted down as Eichmann was hunted down, instead we had grade A jerk MMS sending toadies to talk to Pak.

What rubbish.
Is he on the list or not.He is a known entity and should be traced , other names location etc found out and the.. He should be publicly executed within pakhanaastan.

26th July is (Kargil) Vijaya Divas. Lets hope there is grand celebration in all states.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Vipul »

Kargil's first hero.

Lt Kalia's brother, Vaibhav, now 25, identified his body when it arrived in a coffin wrapped in the national flag in Palampur. Saurabh's face, he recalls, "was the size of my fingers, his eyebrows were the only visible feature, no eyes, no jaw, there were cigarette burns… it was very bad. My parents couldn't have seen him."

Vaibhav pauses, then stops talking.

He does not mention that his brother's eyes and eardrums were pierced, the private organs cut, his chest burned… the details are mentioned in the appeal that his father has sent out to Indian citizens in the last five years.

Their father Dr N K Kalia, a senior scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has written to every important department in government, to the prime minister, to every embassy and consulate he could find addresses of, to take up the case of human rights violations and the flouting of the Geneva Convention by Pakistan.
Lt Saurabh Kalia's body was identified by his commanding officer and flown to Srinagar and then to Delhi where a postmortem was conducted by Red Cross India personnel at the Safdarjung Hospital.The family was not given the report, says Dr Kalia, because army rules forbade it. It would have helped him pursue his son's inhuman death if he had proof of his torture, he says. He could have attached a copy of the postmortem report and sent it to every national/international forum seeking justice.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Aaryan »

I have 2 questions. May be gurus can answer them

1 Capt Vikram Batra and Capt Anuj Nayyar both were martyred on point Point 4875 on same day. That means 2 different battalions were attacking the same point on same time. Usually in Kargil one battalion attacked any feature and then if it failed 2nd battalion was brought in except may be in case of Tiger hill. So why were 2 battalions attacking same poit on same day.. Was it finish before the dead line kinda syndrome?? Both battalions 13 Jkli and 17 jats are given the credit of capturing the point. In reality which one captured it??

2 Also i read somewhere about a General taking vow of capturing some points in 72 hours or he will give up food, and that was the reason of suicidal full moon attack on lone hill, three pimples and Knoll in which large cadre of 2nd Raj Rif were martyred.. How true or authentic is this piece of info?
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by MN Kumar »



From 1.44 min onwards. Is this the same news that former Army Chief Gen. VP Malik accused Burkha Dutt of disclosing the attack plans?
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by jamwal »

Has this video been posted before ?
Confession of captured Pakistani soldiers of kargil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-AaOGha7W4
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Thakur_B »

Memoirs of infantry and artillery men from Kargil War. Courtesy Kunal Biswas.

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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by jamwal »

From https://www.facebook.com/pavo.cavalry/p ... 2768076202

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PAPER TIGER AND A REAL BATTLE SOLDIER
ARCHITECTS OF KARGIL JAVED HASSAN (EXTREME LEFT) AND MUSHARRAF !
SO GUILTY WAS JAVED HASSAN THAT WHILE HE WAS COMMANDANT NATIONAL DEFENCE COLLEGE ALL STUDENTS WERE TOLD NOT TO USE THE WORD KARGIL IN ANY DISCUSSION , AT THE PERIL OF THEIR MILITARY CAREER ! AN AIR FORCE OFFICER WHO MADE THIS MISTAKE WAS SENT BACK FROM THE COURSE !
Kargil-A Military Analysis
Based on discussion with various direct participants of this faux pas in between 1999 and 2002.
15 June 2003
A.H Amin
Kargil stands as perhaps the final military effort on Pakistans part to settle the Kashmir dispute by military means.
Analysis has mostly centred around political aspects of the operation while the military aspects have been largely left to the imagination of the public.Lately it has been claimed that Kargil was launched to bail out Mujahideen as a last resort ! This is an insult to the memory of the Pakistani armed forces "Volunteers" who died in that Himalayan wasteland without a funeral and in circumstances of unimaginable misery !
Kargil operation cannot be understood unless the personalities and motives of the principal characters are examined ! Every action in history is the final culmination of a personality's self perception,ambition and subconscious as well as conscious urges.
In this context the Kargil operation was born out of two key factors ! One was the personality of general Pervez Musharraf and the second was the unceremonial manner in which Nawaz Sharif ousted General Jahangir Karamat Musharraf's predecessor army chief of Pakistan Army.
Musharraf as those who have served with him know which includes this scribe also has always been an intensely ambitious man ! One hallmark of his personality is that he wants to stand out as a great military commander ! Propelled by an enormous ego wherever he served he endeavoured to do something extraordinary ! However fate did not allow him the glory in battle which his other coursemates like shabbir sharif achieved ! In 1965 Musharraf was a subaltern in an artillery unit which saw little action apart from supporting operatiions by indirect fire ! The 16 SP unlike 3 SP which fired on Indian tanks with direct gunsights at Chawinda stayed in conventional artillery role ! In 1971 Musharrafs commando company was not involved in action !
I Interviewed Musharrafs Commanding Officer in 1971 Lieut Col Iqbal Nazir Warraich in 2002 and he stated that Musharraf did not see any action under his command in 1971 contrary to prevalent myths.
Nevertheless Musharraf compensated for this lack of combat laurels by achieving laurels in army courses and in various command assignments ! His final opportunity came when he ascended to the post of army chief in a situation when the army was in a subservient position vis a vis the civilian head of state , something which was regarded by the military herarchy as worse than blasphemy !
The forced retirement of General Karamat by prime minister Nawaz Sharif was regarded as a personal defeat by the Pakistani military brass and by Musharraf who felt that he would be a far weaker army chief under a strong prime minister who had asserted civilian control over the military machine !
These two factors were the fathers of the Kargil operation ! Ambition accompanied by a perception that the Pakistani public must be convinced that the soldiers were better than politicians.
Kargil at the military level was the brainchild of three men i.e General Musharraf the army chief ,Aziz the then army Chief of general Staff and Mahmud the then corps commander 10 Corps ! Musharraf and Mahmud were motivated by intense ambition to achieve military glory and Aziz was motivated by his Kashmiri ancestry plus military ambition.The person they selected to execute the operation was again one distinguished by out of proportion ambition i.e Major General Javed Hassan , author of a book in 1990s that claimed that India was on its way to disintegration and in which mughal king Humayun was resurrected from the grave to fight at Second Battle of Panipat !
In November December 1998 just one month after Musharraf's elevation to the post of army chief volunteers were asked for at the army level for an operation in Kashmir ! Many thousand volunteered including both officers and men from various units !
At no stage did any Mujahideen enter Kargil ! This is a piece of fiction and has no veracity !
These were attached to NLI units in the 80 Brigade sector for training.The principal idea of the plan was to infiltrate four battalions of NLI (Northern light Infantry) stationed in 80 Brigade Sector into Kargil Heights overlooking and dominating the Srinagar Ladakh road the lone Indian link with the Siachen and Leh Sectors ! The idea being to cut the lifeline of Indian supplies to Leh and Siachen Sectors ! Indian held heights in Kargil were to be occupied in February 1999 while Indian infantry had abandoned these heights at the approach of winter snow as an annual routine since 1948.In occupying the heights no fighting was involved ! The real issue was that of supplying Pakistani troops holding these heights which was far more difficult from the Pakistani side than from the Indian side !
Plans were kept secret and even the Commander 10 Corps Engineers of was not allowed to enter the Operations Room in 10 Corps Pindi.
The distance involved in reaching the heights varied from 15 to 35 kilometres from Pakistan side over mountains as high as 13 to 19,000 feet .To do this each battalion was divided into two parts , one acting as porters taking supplies forward and one half occupying the heights .
The heights were occupied as per the plan but the four units while doing so were severly exhausted ! In March-April the Indians discovered the Pakistani presence and reacted severely ! Severe fighting continued till July once the Indians finally re-captured the heights after Pakistani troops had been left to the mercy of Indian artillery and overwhelming troop concentrations as a result of the Blair House Accord !
A brief military examination of the plan reveals following weaknesses.(1) Failure to assess strategic repercussions of the operation at geopolitic and national strategic level .(2) Logistic failure in incorrect appreciation of supplying the troops . (3) Failure to understand that by occupying the heights the Indians were driven into a corner and had no choice but to retaliate , not for glory as was the Pakistani military's case but for pure military survival . (4) At a more subtle level the use of the Chora-Batalik Sector as a future spring board for Pakistani operations against India was sealed since Indians heavily fortified this sector for any future war.
The Pakistani planners failed to assess that war as an instrument of policy is no longer in vogue at the international level and their temporary military success would only bring greater international censure and a negative war mongering image without any corresponding military gain at the strategic level.
This scribe interviewed a former commander of FCNA and 10 Corps about logistics and General Imtiaz Warraich replied as following :--
" We initiated this operation but failed to support it with comprehensive operational planning and above all buildup for essential logistic support without which no operation can succeed"......'" the principal reason for our heavy casualties and lack of progress was unimaginative and callous logistic operations to support the units".
At one point the sepoys who had volunteered to fight and had come from many other infantry units to the NLI units refused to act as porters carrying supplies over 15 kilometres and were so exasperated that they defied Javed Hassan's personal orders in unit durbars to carry supplies and when Javed Hassn threw his cap on the ground threatened to march over it unless they were not employed as porters ! One such volunteer told this scribe that we had volunteered to fight ,not to act as porters ! The same fact was also mentioned in ISI chief Ziauddin Butt's secret report to Nawaz Sharif prepared by an Engineer officer on Zia's staff in ISI !
The failure to assess the "Enemy" factor was another strategic planning failure at the highest level .I asked General Warraich this question and he stated " Capture of Kargil Heights would totally stop all Indian movement to Leh and Ladakh Sectors unlike Pakistan in Siachen and Indians had no option but to do and die " !
KARGIL BRIGADE COMMANDER MASUD ASLAM WAS AWARDED A GALLANTRY AWARD FOR LEADING FROM THE REAR.HE WAS PROMOTED A LIEUTENANT GENERAL AND CONDUCTED THE DIASASTOROUS WAZIRISTAN OPERATION.
Lust for glory and honour in battle are perfectly reasonable aspirations as long as they are accompanied by commensurate military talent in the generals who are at the helm of affairs ! This was sadly lacking in the Musharraf team who planned the operation. Their egos were many times larger than their real military talent !
By promoting an intensely ambitious man to the rank of army chief Nawaz did a favour which could only be repaid by betrayal ! The plan was based not on sound military reasoning but on burning ambition and an unrealistic desire for glory by men far away from the heat of battle ! No one above major level died , yet in a report to the military secretarys branch Javed Hassan recommended retiring 75 % of officers involved in the operation below colonel level !
The prime minister was not fully briefed because of ulterior motives ! Had the operation succeeded it would have been projected as a proof of Musharraf's Napoleonic brilliance and if it failed as it did Nawaz Sharif would have been made the scapegoat !
MUSHARRAF AS COMMANDER 1 CORPS
The operations planners were distinguished neither by loftiness of thought,nor audacity in the conduct of battle athe operational or strategic level.Thus boldness at tactiacl level was sacrificed because of operational and tactical timidity at the highest level.
No one appreciated that the army men who were employed , and it is a fiction that there was a single Mujahid in Kargil , had flesha nd blood ! These men mourned by a few hundred families were sons husbands fathers and brothers !
GENERAL ZIA UD DIN WAS DG ISI AT THE TIME OF THE KARGIL FAUX PAS AND FEELS WITH IMMENSE CONVICTION THAT MUSHARRAF KEPT THE CIVILIAN PRIME MINISTER IN DARKNESS ABOUT KARGIL
The Kargil operation at the military level is a watershed ! Idealism that propelled many hundred to die in those Himalayan wastes is buried for good ! Now there is a new breed which dominates the army ! The ones who aim at going on lush UN secondments or to KESC,WAPDA or as well paid consulatants !
Karnal Sher Khan was fighting till August 1999 as the plate below his picture at a Pakistan Army mess indicates.This means that these indomitable warriors werefighting like Lions while their shameless opportunist commander Musharraf had abandoned them in July 1999 to die fighting without ammunition and rations
What can one conclude ! It was the human heart that failed in Kargil and this heart which failed was housed in the ribcage of men sitting in the GHQ and not on the rocky pinnacles of Kargil ! Once the supply lines were closed under Indian threat of a counter attack , these brave men all Pakistan Army regulars were abandoned to die , pounded by artillery fire , bayoneted by overwhelming numbers , weakened by starvation ! Who can hear their cries ! Our ears are covered with heaps of lies ! Truth died at Kargil ! What remains is a body guard of lies!
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by ramana »

How many Pak POWs were captured in Kargil?

Hope none to very small number.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by deejay »

Shaun wrote:
ramana wrote:How many Pak POWs were captured in Kargil?

Hope none to very small number.

Reposting with corrected link.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by SaiK »

Image
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http://www.scoopnest.com/user/TimesNow/ ... 4427433984



Meet Captain Neikezhakuo Kenguruse - The Kargil Hero You Have Never Heard Of

Captain Neikezhakuo Kenguruse’s Mahavir Chakra medal citation reads - "He displayed conspicuous gallantry, indomitable resolve, grit and determination beyond the call of duty and made the supreme sacrifice in the face of the enemy, in true traditions of the Indian Army."

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As the leader of the Ghatak Platoon he was tasked with the capture of the area ‘Black Rock’ in Drass sector during the Kargil War. The commando mission involved attacking the well entrenched enemy position on a cliff face. The position had been interfering with the capture of the main objective of the battalion.
The Ghatak Platoon, as it was scaling the cliff face, came under intense enemy fire in which Captain Kenguruse was injured in the abdomen. Despite the severe injury and profuse bleeding, the brave Naga carried on with the assault. Unmindful of his injury, he led the platoon to the top of the cliff and was faced with a sheer rock that separated the platoon from the enemy.
While securing the rope for his men to climb the rock face, his feet started slipping. Neglecting the bitter cold and sharp rocks, he kicked off his boots and launched the final assault barefoot. He fired a rocket launcher and charged at the enemy, killing two infiltrators with his rifle and another two with his commando knife in hand-to-hand combat.

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A hail of bullets threw him off the cliff and he would later succumb to his injuries, but not before he was able to neutralise the enemy position single-handedly. An act of unmatched gallantry and courage.

http://www.indiatimes.com/culture/who-w ... 34587.html
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by deejay »

^^^ Awe inspiring, absolutely 'legendary' story of a brave Indian. Salute to late Captain Neikezhakuo Kenguruse.

Thanks Saik ji for posting.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Vivek K »

Rest in peace Braveheart!
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by SaiK »

New book reveals how Indian Army took enemy by surprise in Kargil

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 367621.cms
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Drass: Indian Army soliders at the Kargil war memorial. (PTI photo)

HIGHLIGHTS
• It was the speed and spontaneity with which Army launched its attacks that took the enemy by surprise, leading to their victory in the 1999 Kargil war, reveals a new book by General Mohinder Puri.
• His book titled 'Kargil: Turning the Tide' is a first-hand narrative of the operations of 8 Mountain Division


NEW DELHI: It was the speed and spontaneity with which the Indian Army launched its attacks that took the enemy by surprise, leading to their victory in the 1999 Kargil war, says Lieutenant General Mohinder Puri. He headed the 8 Mountain Division.

Gripping accounts of valour and fortitude from the battle front of the war between India and Pakistan have been recollected in a new book penned by Puri.

The book titled 'Kargil: Turning the Tide', which was launched here on Monday evening, is a first-hand narrative of the operations of 8 Mountain Division, which was tasked to evict the enemy from the Drass-Mushkoh Sector during 'Operation Vijay'.

READ ALSO:
Kargil war: Pakistan planned to drop nuclear bomb on India during conflict

"We surprised the enemy with the speed and ferocity of our movement. It was the speed with which we conducted the operations and took them totally by surprise, this was one of the reasons why we succeeded in evicting the enemy," he said.

Recounting one such incident, the then Major-General Puri said how after several failed attempts to capture the pivotal Tololing peak, he had asked his men to attack again the next evening, but by the time he reached his headquarters, India had already conquered the strategic feature.

READ ALSO:
Musharraf kept Kayani in dark about Kargil plan, book claims

The Tololing, a dominant position overlooking Srinagar- Leh Highway (NH-1D), was so strategic that after it was conquered it was only a matter of six days for Indian troops to notch up a string of successes by evicting well-entrenched intruders in four nearby outposts.

He said, Colonel MB Ravindranath, Commanding Officer of the 2 Rajputana Rifles, radioed him, camping some 20-km away and said in a terse message, "Sir, I'm on Tololing top."

"After I was informed that we have not been able to capture Tololing, I just asked them to consolidate and in the evening I said, 'have a go.' By the time I reached the headquarters, I was told that we have captured Tololing.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by shyamoo »

Paging Sanju..

Is the Col M.B.Ravindranath our senior from school? I remember a Ravindranath who always came first is all the athletic events that he paticipated in. I know that he joined the Army and visited us once. He was posted to Kashmir.

He mentioned something that surprised me then. You become really dark when you stay at those heights for extended period of time. His face became really dark except around the eyes that were protected by goggles.

I sure would like to know what became of him. The guy had presence.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Ashokk »

Not sure if this has been posted before. Speech by Col.Lalit Rai, must watch.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by chetak »

Quite a long paper. Recommend reading in full. Excuse if posted earlier.


Airpower at 18,000’: The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War

SUMMARY

High in the mountains of Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1999, India and Pakistan fought in an intense border clash for limited but important stakes. Overshadowed by NATO’s higher-profile air war for Kosovo, the Kargil War ensued for seventy-four days at a cost of more than a thousand casualties on each side. Yet it remains only dimly appreciated by most Western defense experts—and barely at all by students and practitioners of airpower.

Nevertheless, it was a milestone event in Indian military history and one that represents a telling prototype of India’s most likely type of future combat challenge. The Kargil conflict was emblematic of the kind of lower-intensity border skirmish between India and Pakistan, and perhaps also between India and China, that could recur in the next decade in light of the inhibiting effect of nuclear weapons on more protracted and higher-stakes tests of strength.

The experience offers an exemplary case study in the uses of airpower in joint warfare in high mountain conditions and is key to a full understanding of India’s emerging air posture. It is the one instance of recent Indian exposure to high-intensity warfare that provides insights into the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) capabilities, limitations, relations with its sister services, and interactions with India’s civilian leadership.

The Kargil conflict offers an exemplary case study in the uses of airpower in joint warfare in high mountain conditions and is key to a full understanding of India’s emerging air posture.
In the Kargil War, the IAF rapidly adapted to the air campaign’s unique operational challenges, which included enemy positions at elevations of 14,000 to 18,000 feet, a stark backdrop of rocks and snow that made for uncommonly difficult visual target acquisition, and a restriction against crossing the Line of Control that forms the border with Pakistan. Without question, the effective asymmetric use of IAF airpower was pivotal in shaping the war’s successful course and outcome for India. Yet the conflict also highlighted some of India’s military shortcomings. The covert Pakistani intrusion into Indian-controlled Kashmir that was the casus belli laid bare a gaping hole in India’s nationwide real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability that had allowed the incursion to go undetected for many days. It further brought to light the initial near-total lack of transparency and open communication between the Indian Army’s top leaders and the IAF with respect to the gathering crisis.

All things considered, the conflict was a poor test of India’s air warfare capability. Despite the happy ending of the Kargil experience for India, the IAF’s fighter pilots were restricted in their operations due to myriad challenges specific to this campaign. They were thus consigned to do what they could rather than what they might have done if they had more room for maneuver.

On a strategic level, the Kargil War vividly demonstrated that a stable bilateral nuclear deterrence relationship can markedly inhibit such regional conflicts in intensity and scale—if not preclude them altogether. In the absence of the nuclear stabilizing factor, those flash points could erupt into open-ended conventional showdowns for the highest stakes. But the Kargil War also demonstrated that nuclear deterrence is not a panacea. The possibility of future conventional wars of major consequence along India’s northern borders with Pakistan and China persists, and the Indian defense establishment must plan and prepare accordingly.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by parshuram »

Hello Experts

A Unusual Request from me, Recently had a twitter spat with barkha Bibi on Her role in airing Tiger Hill attack live. She obviously denied it and tried to suppress me (where i had quoted Gen Puri Book as well .. where general clearly points out how she was covering the Tiger Hill attack and says "So much for secrecy of Operations").

well in her fit of rage she has challenged me to join Gen. Puri over Tea and clear my doubts and i have accepted the Challenge

My understanding of the topic and what I have heard from my many serving friends in army that it seriously compromised our surprise element with element and she got away with it (Some mentioned she was to be tried in court for same).

I would welcome any experts comments on the topic as i know if she arranges the meeting and she would try her influence to bully me . :-)

Thanks
Parshuram
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Vivek K »

All - please help Parshuram. Barkha ji needs to be told the facts.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by shiv »

The best I can get is from Quora
https://www.quora.com/Was-Barkha-Dutts- ... ndian-Army
Ramandeep Singh, Read many books/interviews on Kargil War
Written Jan 6

At the time of Kargil war General V. P. Malik was the Indian Army Chief. In his book on Kargil war “From Surprise to Victory” he talked about Barkha Dutt's reporting in Kargil war. General mentioned that after the war he invited Barkha Dutt to his office and admired her for the professionalism she showed while reporting in the war. He also politely told her that she might have unintentionally shared Army’s plan with enemy by saying that “our next target is Tiger Hill”.

However, Barkha wanted to ask sometime else. She wanted to confirm that, if her use of iridium satellite phone was tracked by Pakistanis and due that some damaged was caused to our army soldiers. To this, general answered that Pakistani Army didn’t have any such equipments and even army officers were using same iridium phones.

He also talked about how the proactive media involvement in the war has actually helped Army in busting Pakistan’s lies that it was their regular army not the mujahideens who were fighting against us. Army has shared the papers/documents they sized from Pakistani soldiers with the media, so that the whole world can see the truth.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Aarvee »

https://www.saddahaq.com/gen-malik-plea ... ttacharjee

And her "Confessions" and look at the single comment at the bottom, how her writings are influencing newer generations and bringing up little Liberal thinking seculars.

http://old.himalmag.com/component/conte ... orter.html
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by jamwal »

Such idiots need to be attacked from every corner, not just her helping the enemy in Kargil Also include her corruption.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by jamwal »

parshuram wrote:Hello Experts

A Unusual Request from me, Recently had a twitter spat with barkha Bibi on Her role in airing Tiger Hill attack live. She obviously denied it and tried to suppress me (where i had quoted Gen Puri Book as well .. where general clearly points out how she was covering the Tiger Hill attack and says "So much for secrecy of Operations").

well in her fit of rage she has challenged me to join Gen. Puri over Tea and clear my doubts and i have accepted the Challenge

My understanding of the topic and what I have heard from my many serving friends in army that it seriously compromised our surprise element with element and she got away with it (Some mentioned she was to be tried in court for same).

I would welcome any experts comments on the topic as i know if she arranges the meeting and she would try her influence to bully me . :-)

Thanks
Parshuram
http://www.opindia.com/2016/03/meet-the ... t-slogans/
Meet the journalism student who almost lost his career for shouting anti-Barkha Dutt slogans
Did it all start with a complaint to your course director at IIMC, or were you warned of the consequences even before that? You have previously said you were intimidated…

Ans: No. Things came into action immediately after Barkha Dutt left the venue. People were getting extremely aggressive following physical assault by NDTV crews on protesters including women. I was not warned, I was directly targeted, but it misfired because of bad preparation by NDTV as they didn’t have the time to hatch a foolproof conspiracy. In less than half an hour, NDTV could only plan to file an assault case against me. NDTV’s Ruby Dhingra was planted as a victim and other crew members were presented as eye witnesses. It all started when a girl appeared out of the blue and started leveling number of serious allegations against me. I was stunned. Many people who gathered against Barkha Dutt had gone back to their work, but some of them were still walking around by that time.



NDTV did first mistake when Ruby appeared before me along with her crew, expecting me to be alone and easy to be targeted. I was caught by NDTV’s crew and dragged to police. She told police that I assaulted her and put other allegations too. Her allegations were promptly reinforced by her crew members. Neither Ruby nor any of her crew members informed the police that they’re from NDTV. They were trying to portray that they had come for Anna’s movement.

During the same time, a lady and some protesters reached out to me to understand the situation. I didn’t notice that some protesters were still there. They knew what had happened and so they started shouting slogans again, and one of them exposed Ruby Dhingra. They explained to the police that I was innocent and the complainant has manufactured a story to malign me. After a short interrogation I was asked to go.

This was the starting point. The very next day I received a call from an unknown number. I was threatened that I would have to eat 22 Salfas tablets if I do not shut my mouth against Barkha Dutt. Perhaps the same day I was handed over a notice from IIMC, where I was a student of Hindi Journalism.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

The Parachute Regiment in Kargil: Key Battles
http://tejasmrca.weebly.com/orbat/the-p ... ey-battles
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by ArjunPandit »

parshuram wrote:Hello Experts

A Unusual Request from me, Recently had a twitter spat with barkha Bibi on Her role in airing Tiger Hill attack live. She obviously denied it and tried to suppress me (where i had quoted Gen Puri Book as well .. where general clearly points out how she was covering the Tiger Hill attack and says "So much for secrecy of Operations").

well in her fit of rage she has challenged me to join Gen. Puri over Tea and clear my doubts and i have accepted the Challenge

My understanding of the topic and what I have heard from my many serving friends in army that it seriously compromised our surprise element with element and she got away with it (Some mentioned she was to be tried in court for same).

I would welcome any experts comments on the topic as i know if she arranges the meeting and she would try her influence to bully me . :-)

Thanks
Parshuram
Its been quite some time parshuram, no news from you on barkha bibi
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by UlanBatori »

He fired a rocket launcher and charged at the enemy, killing two infiltrators with his rifle and another two with his commando knife in hand-to-hand combat.
Ppl were climbing at those altitudes carrying a rocket launcher with one rocket, a rifle, Khukri and what else? I have to shake my head.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by shiv »

Image
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by gauravsh »

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 767852.cms
The UP Cabinet on Tuesday approved the renaming of Lucknow's Sainik School in the name of Capt Manoj Pandey, who was martyred during the Kargil war.
The formal ceremony will take place on Wednesday, July 26, which is marked as Kargil Vijay Diwas. Chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi and governor Ram Naik will attend a wreath-laying ceremony at Smritika War Memorial to honour the state's martyrs in the war on the day.
Seems like appropriate thread and date to post it here.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Philip »

We honour the memories of those gallant soldiers ,airmen,etc., who fought at Kargil against such intimidating natural odds and the Paki troops commanding the heights,defeating the enemy so badly that Pak abandoned the bodies of its fallen,pretending that they were mujahideen not regular troops.This was the most shameful "cut" of all,given to Paki troops by their own army chief himself and the civilian administration. The heroic acts in retaking the peaks at such high alts. has never before been seen in warfare anywhere in the world other than at Siachen.

Let us therefore remember,honour and salute our gallant forces on this glorious day of victory! I have a small suggestion.Every year,
"Remembrance Day" functions are solemnly observed in Britain and elsewhere ,for the dead of WW1,where millions lost their lives in senseless trench warfare on the poppy fields of Belgium.The distinctive red poppy flower badge is sold and worn for weeks by millions of people,the proceeds going to the Veterans associations. We could do something similar,perhaps a little silver badge with a mountain in relief,symbolising the heights of the Kargil peaks and the greatness of the victory.Proceeds to our Veterans. Similar car stickers could also be made. It would be a fitting tribute each year to the heroes of Kargil.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by jamwal »

The glorious dead
It was a glorious morning, the sun was shining and at 13,000 ft, the air though a little thin, Pure. Little banks of clouds accentuated, not marred, the blueness of the sky, the nip in the air just perfect.
I was in Drass and just starting the climb towards one of the craggy rock faces that abound here ........rock faces that saw bitter combat between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in June and July 1999 and that glorious July morning I was accompanying the father of one of the soldiers who died in the war, as he retraced his son's final journey.
Col VN Thapar is a remarkable man, a soldier of the old school, very pucca, very composed. Every year, he climbs up to the exact spot where his son died, that's all eight years since the war ended and has made a small shrine to his son, at 15000 ft!! In 2006, I met him at an army function and promised that the next time he went up I would accompany him - that was that. So here we were, climbing up, crossing high alpine meadows and negotiating icy cold streams.
I said Col Thapar is a remarkable man, it just isn't the resilience he has, I am a reasonably fit man but at these heights it isn't easy. At 65, the Colonel isn't a young man, but he never complains, never once asked for a break, he just goes on stolidly.


No, the real reason for my respect is something that I realized as I shot the story. Here was a man who had lost his young son, Capt Thapar was but 22, when he fell, but even as he recounted Vijayant's last moments, his father, the Colonel, never lost his poise, calm, dignified, he found place in his heart to feel for the Pakistani soldiers his son fought, complimenting their bravery, recounting how tough it must have been for them as they were pounded for days on end by ceaseless arty fire, without water.
He even showed me the cave where they used to take shelter from the shelling and it was never 'as the enemy' that he referred to them, they were the 'Pakistani Boys', just as his son and his mates were the 'RajRif Boys', he was just a soldier talking about fellow soldiers!
For me it was an experience I will always cherish, Kargil was the first war extensively covered by the media, for the first time we saw the Indian army in action, we shared their agony, saw young soldiers on TV hours after a successful attack, alive, happy, recounting their adventures and then some days later saw obits read out on, saw their lifeless bodies, blackened, torn to pieces, being cremated in their hometowns. So it was the first war we saw in real time or did we?


What we saw was a part of the war, what it looked like from Drass but the real action, the actual combat took place at these craggy mountain ridges, the kind we were climbing. It is here that you got an idea of the enormous difficulties of fighting here. Here you saw the Sangars built by the Northern Light Infantry soldiers, their clothes, and ammunition boxes still there. For the first time you saw the bullet marks on rocks, the shell splinters that cut a swathe through men, turning them into the lifeless bodies that came down from the mountains every day of the war.
Walking among those scarred rocks ...those broken sangars, along knife thin spurs was exciting, unsettling, humbling, you realized the enormity of what these soldiers, most in their early twenties, had achieved. For me the whole experience was also very very romantic, I know it's a strange way to describe an event that led to 600 deaths as romantic, but then think of it, what a noble way to die and yes death can be noble, to die for honour, to die for your comrades, to die for an idea is very noble. Of course this would strike some as perhaps being too idealistic, neither honour nor ideas are things easy to explain or justify, but let me attempt to and to do that we have to go back to the generation of Indians that fought and bled in Kargil.
Its the story of my generation, people who grew up in the 80's, each one at one level had a similar life, back from school at 2.30, the evening playing football in the neighborhood park, the 9'0 clock serial on Doordarshan, watched while having dinner. It's a generation for whom the cultural event of the year was the one hour recorded Grammy awards show, telecast days after the event but something we all waited for. It's people from my generation who can actually remember the first time they ate a Pizza, who remember the first digital quartz watch they owned, in most cases a gift from a relative abroad. It was in my generation where it was a badge of honor to say loudly in school that you never watched Hindi films (that we all watched secretly is another thing).


So this breed of people who grew up in the dying days of a socialist India, in many way this generation was an orphan, we had nothing, not the idealism of the 50's and 60's nor the almost brash self confidence of today. What we had was the realisation that we had lousy cars, dirty cities, made bad films and had a political class that we felt had betrayed us. It was an era when you saw a generational change every seven to eight years, such was the sameness of our existence. We grew up in a country, at one level we were ashamed of, where to go settle abroad was to have made it in life. We viewed our country in a way most view a drunk relative at a party, you can't disown them but they embarrass you. India for us was an idea that had gone bad.


But these young boys who fell on those icy slopes in Drass, in Mushkoh, who died winning back Tiger Hill, they died for that idea. They were the lot that joined the army when joining the army was no longer fashionable. Many indeed joined, cause they wanted a job pure and simple but to say that a man would crawl up steep mountain slopes, braving bullets and shells, getting torn to bits, because the Government of India in their benign largesse was paying them Rs 15,000 a month, jawans Rs 7,000 ( they are equated with unskilled labour)!, is simply not understanding the strength of that Idea called India. Yes for many it is a job that feeds their family but if money translated into courage, a battalion of millionaire CEO's would have fought harder, a troop of our Bombay filmstars would have walked up the slopes smoking cigarettes cracking jokes.


No! To me this argument is just another reflection of my generation's disillusionment with India, they simply can't believe that India is an idea that is worth dying for, that these boys fought to claw back a piece of their country taken over by the foe. Patriotism couldn't be the answer. So then to expect them to understand honour and the brotherhood of soldiering and the other pillars of soldiering, would be to expect too much, after all what is honour? - a word consigned to the dustbin in the world we live in, where politicians make promises they have no intention of keeping, where educated men have no qualms about lying in court, the infamy of being a bought witness wiped out in a year or two.


But honour survives in the Indian Army, when the Rajrif boys were fighting for Tololing in early June 1999, they knew that for 200 years men wearing the same cap badge had done the same - fight and die but never turn back, and as they fought and died they knew they were upholders of a legacy that would outlive them, a torch that would be carried forward by other hands, a torch that they must ensure through their blood, would not be extinguished. Many do not realize the power and the pull of this sense of honour.
In his last letter home Vijayant Thapar's one wish was that his photograph be kept in the Alpha company mandir ! He knew he was just a moment in the unshakable universe of the 2nd battalion the Rajputana Rifles, he might fall, but there would be others. The unit would outlive the moment even if he might not, but it was up to him to ensure that in the years ahead this moment, his moment, was remembered with pride. That, subverting your fate to a higher cause, to willingly extinguish yourself, to kill your desires, your dreams, for others, that, is Honour. The izzat of the regiment, it is not something you can see, it is something that that you believe, its an idea.
The 600 fallen in Kargil, these are human beings we are talking about, flesh and blood, with human weaknesses, so 2nd Rajriff who won India's first victory in Kargil, the unit that lost four officers and 25 jawans and almost a 100 wounded, the same 2nd Rajriff also court-martialed a few men cause they simply refused to fight! It isn't their fear that made them do so, every fighting man feels fear. This idea for them wasn't worth dying for, they did not believe.


Honour and patriotism are nothing without the third pillar that makes the army, the brotherhood of soldering. That mix of loyalty and faith whose power is a kinship that makes a Kargil possible, friendship we all know, but how many of us would take a bullet for a friend ?
When young Lt Kengruse joined his unit straight out of the academy, he was the leader of a group of men most of whom had seen many years of service in the army. For the Jats and Rajputs of 2 RajRif , Kengruse, a Naga boy, would have been as strange as a man from outer space but then for Bhup Singh from Jhunjunu and Ram Singh from Jodhpur, he was their Sahib.
So they put their lives in an envelope and gave it to Kengruse, him they would follow, if he made a mistake, they would pay with their blood. They ask only one thing, that he believe in them as much as they believe in him, that he dance with them at the Barakhana, that he eat their Churma, learn to sing their Ragini's, him they would trust and this is the fellowship of the soldier.
When Vijayant Thapar led his platoon into attack on the 29th of June, they were immediately hit by concentrated shellfire and the first man to fall was Vijayant's sahayak or batman, Hukum Singh, torn apart by shell splinters .The survivors remember that it drove Vijayant mad with rage and sorrow, because the two of them had in six months of Vijayant's service in the unit, formed a bond, this Delhi bred officer's son and the metric pass village boy from Rajasthan.


In the unit it was Hukum Singh who would wake him up every morning with a cup of tea, lay out his uniform, not only heat up water for him to bathe but perhaps also put a little toothpaste on his toothbrush, it was Hukum Singh who would see that Sahib had had a tongue lashing from the CO and try cheer him up, in battle Hukum Singh was right next to his buddy Vijayant.
This story might trouble some, why is it that officers are given so much importance, even in the media an officer's death gets more attention, there is only one way to answer that..quite simply - Its an officer driven army. The officer is treated special because the officer leads in battle by example. His message to his troops is always, follow me, who never asks them to do what he would not do themselves. In Kargil in most cases it was a young officer that was first to reach the objective, this Army has the highest officer casualty ratio in the entire world! To lead from the front, this is the officers creed, not Rs 15,000 a month!
So as I walked among the debris of war that July morning, the spent bullet empties, the pieces of metal from arty shells, the rusting ammunition boxes, I tried to picture those battles and the men who fought them. For a moment I could see clearly, the freezing night, the smoke and flashes of falling shells, the hazy light from flares and then the scraggly line of men crawling forward, heads bent, holding their weapons, weighed down by equipment. In the silence I could hear the shouts of the wounded, the screams of a young man as he tried to rally his men, I could sense their fear, how exposed each man must have felt.


In that moment of how acutely alive each must have felt, each part of his body alert, expecting each moment to ripped apart by a piece of metal, how they must have watched the line of tracer curve lazily as it came towards them, each man wanting to do nothing more than to lie down escape this madness. My legs felt as weighed down as theirs must have, how over the crescendo of battle, the loudest noise in their ears must have been the beating of their hearts. And yet they went on, I felt the gaze of their set eyes, the iron will that made them move forward inch by inch mouths sticky with fear. It makes you wonder what men were these ....
Six hundred dead - those that died among these lifeless rocks, on peaks that they had never heard off, seen before, hills that even did not even have names, just numbers on maps, but Maps that told them that this was India and they believed. So what were these 600 like, they came from all over India. Some were gentlemen, some were cads, some were liars and some romantics, some were people we would like to be and some people we would never talk to, some were loving husbands and some wife beaters, some never felt fear, some were too afraid to acknowledge it. But god, but god, all of them were Men.

So how does one describe this feat, for me the closest word that comes to mind is BALIDAN, its a word that has as far as I know no perfect equivalent in English. Sacrifice has nothing of the romance and nobility of the Hindi word and yet you realise that these 600, they were all like you and me. This bloodletting wasn't confined to a certain class or clan, these boys weren't a handpicked lot, it is what they achieved that made them select. And that is why Kargil touched such a cord among the common Indian. For the first time this lost generation saw their country differently, some were amazed that there were among them people who thought it was worth dying for, fighting for India. That this land had something, the spirit of Kargil, the real victory of Kargil, is that awakening,


Col Thapar feels he can sense his son's presence there, soldiers posted here feel that the spirits of the dead wander these hills and valleys. Yes high up there is an air of the supernormal that puts you on edge. While I was there, each night I would sit out on a chair and just stare at the hills above me, the moon light making them frightening and beautiful at the same time. I would think of the young men who had won back these mountains, written their names in blood on them and then it was easier to understand, logical, yes they owned them now.
Here, long after we have lived our worthless lives and are forgotten, there would be people who would look at these silent hills and remember with awe the men who had conquered them, and that awe will be their monument. These hills of Kargil are hunting grounds now of those glorious 600, who helped us rediscover an India we thought we had a lost forever.


Randeep Singh Nandal
Special Correspondent, Defence Affairs
Friday, August,3 2007 (Drass)
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Kashi »

They gave up their today....for our tomorrow..

Truer words were never spoken..

Om Shanti mahaveer sainik.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Khalsa »

My salute to the fallen soldiers
My Country Men
My heroes
My Everything

Soldiers, Sailors and the AirMen
We stand united behind you.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

Head hunters in Kargil – Naga Regiment
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... -regiment/

Truly Amazing! :shock:
Another Interesting Snippet from the Kargil War

And then there was a sikh soldier who gave a series of shocks to a tough RMO. The doctor got his first shock when he saw the sikh soldier coming in with his one arm on the other hand. The soldier was walking down so normally that doctor assumed that soldier was in astate of shock and his mind is not registering the pain. But the doctor was grossly incorrect and he understood the fact in next few minutes.

To ease down the soldier, thedoctor started asking regular question like his name, number, unit, fighting, thecause of wound etc. But the soldier was giving all the answers in a normal tone – like nothing has happened to him. Now the puzzled doctor was in astate of shock. He ran out of questions and in that shock or confusion or anxiety he uttered Time kyahuahai. The Sikh soldier said in a dead cold voice, Jihra hath katayahoyahai, us pegadhilagihoyeehai, time vekhlao (there is a watch on that cut off arm, you may check thetime on that`. The doctor stopped for a moment, looked up in disbelief and did not ask any more question.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

Kargil War - How it should have been fought?
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news ... en-fought/

By Brigadier Harwant Singh
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

The Kargil War: How courage prevailed upon cowardly duplicity
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spot ... duplicity/

By Colonel Jaibans Singh
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

Commanding a unit during Kargil war was a dream come true
http://www.newsx.com/national/70153-exc ... a-to-newsx
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Karthik S »

Rakesh
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

BOOK: With Letters, Daughter Of Fallen Soldier Retells Kargil
https://www.livefistdefence.com/2017/09 ... argil.html
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