Pak war hero honoured at India's recommendation

New Delhi: Pakistan army’s Colonel Karnal Sher Khan, who died during the Kargil war, is remembered with great pride.

The man who fought on Tiger Hill from Pakistan's side was given the Nishan e Haidar, Pakistan’s highest gallantry award on the recommendation of the Indian Army.

Captain K Sher Khan's brother Sikandar Sheikh says, “Allah ka shukar hai ki humara dushman bhi koi busdil dushman nahi hai. Agar log kahen ki India busdil hai to main kahunga nahi kyuki usne aelania keh diya ki karnel sher hero hai (No enemy is a coward. I won’t call India coward because it proclaimed Sher Khan as a hero).”

Captain Khan had led an assault to re-capture Tiger Hill soon after Indian troops had taken it and had lost his life in the process.

Ten years after Kargil, Karnal Sher Khan is a folk hero. His images visible everywhere, his native village has even been renamed after him.

Sikandar Sheikh says, "Ek game hai yeh. circikete ek game hai, Chakka mara..mara. Ye ek game hai. Cup milna hai bahadur ko. Cup Kernel Sher ko mila.aur wo bhi dushman ke kehe par (War’s a cricket game, but the winner has got the cup awarded by the opponent)."

On the other side too, valour was prized but the culture was different.

Instances of the Indian soldiers tortured as prisoners of war (PoW) by the Pakistani army can’t be forgotten easily.

However, captain Khan's family, unaware of the torture of Indian troops at Kargil, agree there must be a code of honour among warriors.

courtesy: defence.pk

INDIA - AFGHANISTAN: War and Friendship

The past week was by all accounts a momentous one, as no less a person than former Pakistani President and former Chief of the Army Staff, Gen (Ret'd) Pervez Musharraf, assertively disclosed what has been a 'no-go' area for India's mainstream media and the otherwise hyper-ventilating broadcast media thus far: that India's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has, since 2002, waged a highly successful covert war against Pakistan by actively rendering all kinds of financial assistance to Balochistan-based separatists. But mind you, such covert warfare has not been waged by the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), but by the tri-services DIA and Afghanistan's Riyast-i-Amniyat-i-Milli, and in addition to his routine assignment as India's Defence Adviser at the Embassy in Kabul, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta was officially dolling out huge financial assistance as ordered by the DIA to the Baloch separatists as and when required. For the past one year such activities being undertaken by the DIA were, in fact, openly discussed by both serving and retired senior military officials at both the Armed Forces Gymkhana and the United Services Institution within the National Capital Region. It, therefore, did not come as a great surprise to South Block when Brig Mehta was specifically targeted for assassination by the Pakistan Army's Peshawar-based 324 Military Intelligence Battalion . This in many ways is reminiscent of the era ranging from the mid-1980s and early 1990s during which RAW had succeeded in gaining the trust of what would later morph into the Northern Alliance.

In fact, by 1986, despite India's official recognition of the then Soviet-backed Afghan regime led by Dr Najibullah, India had begun extending medical assistance to the guerrilla forces led by the legendary leader Ahmad Shah Massoud and as a consequence of this, one wing of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) was completely cordoned off by South Block and it was there that all those Mujahideen wounded in battle while fighting the Soviets under Massoud's leadership received the urgent medical attention that they deserved. So impressed was the Northern Alliance by India's humanitarian assistance that this relationship, at first opportunity, got elevated to a higher level when, in the early 1990s after the breakup of the USSR, the Northern Alliance succeeded in securing Tajikistan's approval for an Indian Army-run field hospital to be established at Farkhor.

Lest We Forget - Kargil War 1999 - Captain Vijayant Thapar , Vrc

Credit: Do not know for sure but definitely Captain Vijayant Thapar, Vrc family.

This is something that i never intended to post (as it is a personal letter) until i got it today in my mail. It takes precedence over some of the replies that i wanted to post on the comments sent to me 2 days back. This blog as mentioned earlier is a tribute to all such martyrs who gave up their lives for our better tomorrow.