16 Years and still waiting for 'Justice'

[Zarvan]

In case of a war, intelligence is as important as infantry for an army. History is full of evidences of how a small a piece of intelligence has changed the course of war.

Capt. Saurabh Kalia was the first Indian officer who gave the intelligence about the presence of intruders on the heights of Kargil. His intelligence proved its worthiness as after a few reconnaissances a blur picture of the Pakistani intrusion plan was figured out. In few weeks it was completely clear that our neighbor has betrayed our trust again and captured Indian position in the Kargil valley.

On 15 May 1999, Lt Saurabh Kalia and other soldiers – Sepoy Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh of the 4 JAT regiment had gone for a routine patrol of the Bajrang post in the Kaksar sector in the treeless mountains of Ladakh. They were attacked by the Pakistani armed forces from across the LOC. Being a brave army officer he with his team retaliated ferociously and also passed the intelligence about the intrusion at the same time. As he was on a patrol, he didn’t have ample amount of ammunition to fight and he and his troops ran out of ammunition. He was encircled by a platoon of Pakistani rangers and captured alive before Indian reinforcement could reach them.

The Pakistani‘s left no trace of patrol. Skardu radio of Pakistan announced that Captain Saurabh Kalia had been captured by Pakistani troops.

Captain Saurabh Kalia and his men remained in Pakistani captivity for 22 days. Breaching the Geneva Convention during these 22 days they had been subjected to the most brutal and sadistic ways of tortures possible.

The Pakistanis had tortured them by: burning their bodies with cigarettes, piercing their ear drums with hot rod, puncturing their eyes before removing them, breaking most of their teeth and bones, fracturing their skulls, cutting their lips, chipping of nose, chopping of limbs and private organs and finally shooting them dead. The post mortem report confirmed that these injuries happened ante-mortem (before death).

On 9th June 1999 the mutilated body was handed over to Dr. N K Kalia father of the Capt Saurabh Kalia.

From the year of the Kargil War till today Captain Kalia’s family is trying to get justice from the government and to highlight war crimes that were committed against their son and other Indian soldiers but still there is no substantial progress in the case.

On 14th December 2012 Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik issued the statement that Capt. Kalia would have died because of bad weather conditions.

Now the question is “Does our soldiers deserve a complete justice or these types of nonsense comments”.

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This article was first published on Defence, Indian Defence, Indian Armed Forces, Defence News, India Defence News, Indian Defence News, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, US Defense News, UK Defence News, World Defence News 6:25 p.m. 27th Oct 2015.
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Article written by Anshu Kumar exclusively for Defence News.
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Defence News, 16 Years and still waiting for 'Justice'