After a long stressful relation between India and Pakistan due to Nuclear Test, finally on Sep 15, 1998, situation appears like changing positively when the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaj Sharif met in USA and agreed upon discuss over starting a bus service between Delhi & Lahore. Next year in Feb 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself went to Lahore on bus where he was welcomed warmly by Pak PM. It appeared like this will give a new direction to Indo-Pak relation. But something happened which was neither expected by anyone. It was said that neither the Pak nor the Indian Prime Minister was aware about this incident.
What was this incident then? It was an infiltration done by Pak army in which around 200 Pak soldiers had crossed the Line of Control (LOC) in the terrorist get-up and reached to mountainous region of Kargil and had captured 10 check-points at initial level but seeing that India had not shown any reaction they started moving forward and gradually captured more than 140 check-points but surprisingly Indian government didn’t had any information about these. Actually these points were those points which are vacated by Indian Army in every winter due to extremely chilling cold season.
According to Nazam Shetthy, this filtration was planned much earlier by top army officials of Pakistan in which Parvez Musharaff was one of them followed by Lft. Gen Md. Aziz, Lft. Gen. Mahmud and Brigd. Jawed Hussain. The plan was presented in front of Benazir Bhutto as well by Parvez Musharaff but was rejected by Benazir Bhutto keeping in mind growing good relations with India. The plan of Musharaff was clear to capture those post of Indian army at which they are not present in winter and when India will react, they will show the fear of Nuclear weapons. & if war happens, then KASHMIR issue will be internationalize easily to pressurize India. When these plan was brought to practice is not clear but the first information came to Indian army when a shepherded boy “KASHI NAMGYAL” had seen few bunkers on those region and inform to one of the patrolling team of Indian Army.
Knowing this, many other teams had been sent to check up the situation, but to unfavorable climatic conditions, they were unable to analyse properly. The initial assessment was that there would be around 400 people in the bunkers. Nobody knew that, this time the Kargil going to be fourth war zone between India and Pakistan. Even till the third week of May India was not in the condition to get clear information and because of this, the then defense minister of India George Fernandez had claimed that Indian army can drove them out in just two days. But in the last week of may, Indian army realized that they are not going to face the terrorist but the well trained Pak Army who had already strengthen their position in all hilly posts of Kargil.
Even after knowing these things, India was not in the condition to make a concrete decision because of policy of non-violence and Lahore declaration. Finally on 24th May, after 21 days of getting the information of infiltration cabinet meeting held where the then Army chief Mr. B. P. Malik had clearly told that if the strict actions were not taken then India will witness a drastic change in the boundaries. Indian leaders were thinking that taking strict action would lead to a war between the nuclear powers of the world. To prevent such happenings, army chief was asked to take action but without crossing the LOC.
When the Atal Bihari led BJP government had decided to take action that time it lost its majority and country was having election fever but hands tied with these situations in Kargil, BJP was forced to take big decisions, and use of Air Force was one of the decision. But even after this, Air Force was asked to take all action without crossing the air boundary of LOC and these things were announced in Public that Indian Armed forces would not cross the LOC. This gave upper hand to the enemies as now they didn’t had to worry about their defense as Indian forces are not going to cross LOC. So they focused totally on attacking. But Indian air force had played its role very well and targeted the enemies hidden at 13000 ft to 18000 ft of altitude. The use of laser guided bombs was also done for the first time.
Soon Indian army had shown proof of presence of Pakistani armed force in the Kargil zone by showing the seized Pak documents from one of the Pak soldiers. This was the first war of television era and the reporters had played a crucial role in mobilizing the feeling of nationality among Indians by covering all the news and live broadcasting of war from the battlefield showing how much difficulties our soldiers are facing there but without caring for all these things they are fighting to save the nation and its people.
In the Kargil war many soldiers had sacrificed their life for the motherland but among them Major Batra and Captain Saurav Kalia are the big names. Major Batra, popularly known as ‘SHERSHAH’ by his troops was one of the main target of Pak army because he with his battalion was continuously moving forward to recapture the post and created a lot of damage to Pak army. Point 5140, very special and major strategic points for India to win over Kargil was still under Pak control. Major Batra and his troop decided to recapture point 5140 at any cost and again they started for their next target and fought a terrible fight with Pak soldiers and tomorrow morning Tiranga was on point 5140, but Major Batra was no more there to celebrate this victory. Nation had lost one more son who died just to keep the nations hope alive.
For the first time the dead bodies of the soldiers had been transported from battlefield to their homes. Though this was difficult but it played an unexpected role in gaining country’s support as now the Kargil was not confined to Kashmir but it reached to Kanyakumari. From Rajasthan to Nagaland. Entire country was now connected to Kargil directly keeping eye over every situation & was getting mentally ready to fight for the country and win at any cost. This growing feeling of nationality also gave moral support to brave soldiers. They started their operation with double energy. On the other hand Pakistan was not in the condition to accept the dead bodies of its soldiers because of International prestige issues.
Terrified by India’s counter attack, Pakistan tried to escape and asked to seize-fire form Indian side and called for a peace meeting but on June 7th, 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had made it clear that ‘India is always ready to talk but the talk should have some purpose and meaning and in current situation the meeting will be done in only one case when Pakistan will admit its fault and withdraw its forces back from Kargil without any condition. Seeing no other option to save their prestige, first army chief of Pakistan Parvez Musharaff and then the Prime Minister Nawaj Sharif ran to old friend China for help and also asked America to interfere in the issue but America had clearly told Pakistan to withdraw its forces from Kashmir first. Nobody in Pakistan was ready to take the responsibility of defeat in war, especially from India. So again next day Nawaj Sharif called to America and for personal meeting with Bill Clinton but again America had repeated the same word. Getting no other option this time Nawaj Sharif reached directly America and that too not in government plane but on commercial plane. News also came that Pakistani army had turn the Nuclear Weapons toward India and ready tom use it.
After a long meeting requests from Sharif, Clinton called to India and requested Atal Bihari Vajpayee to stop action and go for a peaceful talk but salute to brave hearted Prime minister, he clearly rejected the proposal by saying that Indian forces won’t stop their action till a single Pakistani Troop is on land of Indian subcontinent. Finally with no other option left, Pakistan was forced to take back his forces from Kargil that too without any condition.
After 10 years of this, Pakistan had accepted at many times that yes there was direct involvement of Pak army in Kargil war and around 453 Pak soldiers had died in the war but later Nawaj Sharif had claimed that the numbers was nearly around 4000. War was finished but virtually. Even today, every day many cases of overlooking of seize-fire are reported every day. Though whatever had happened, had happened but even today the Pak people asks these question that finally what Pakistan had achieved by doing this and India the question is that, having world’s second largest army how we were not aware about these things and they took the situation to war ??? Generation keeps on coming and going but this question will continue forever. We were not aware about these things and they took the situation to war??? Generation keeps on coming and going but this question will continue forever.
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