During May and July in 1999, when ‘Operation Vijay’ was in full progress in Kargil and different regiments of the Indian Army was directly engaged in evicting the Pakistani intruders from the cliffs that they had occupied, Petty Officer Niraj Kumar of the Indian Navy was not far from the international border of Pakistan.
“I was in INS Nishank a veer-class corvette along the coast of Gujarat and just a couple of nautical miles from the international border of Pakistan. We were fully loaded and ready to steam in and pound Karachi once again, as we did in 1971 war,” said the Petty Officer who retired from the Navy after a stint of about 15 years and is now working in a public sector bank.
With both sadness and pride, Mr. Niraj said, “My brother just retired from the Indian Air Force and I lost a nephew and an uncle in the Kargil war.”
The war veterans took out a march holding the national Tri-Colour aloft from the Naval Coast Battery to the War Memorial on Beach Road here on Sunday to celebrate the Kargil Vijay Diwas. Over 200 personnel from the armed forces, dressed in their best and sporting gallantry medals, marched down smartly to lay a reef at the memorial, and pay their respects to the 527 personnel who laid down their lives during the two-month long operation.
Though they were from different eras, they took it as a pride to reminisce the days when they beat the enemy.
Talking about his experience Havaldar Ramana said, “I was in the Armed Corp and was posted very close to Kargil. Every day we would see the body bags carrying young soldiers and officers come in and that motivated us to do better.”
Though from a different era, Commodore Subbaiah, who was directly involved in the bombing Karachi in 1971, said, “I was then posted as sub-Lieutenant in INS Talwar, a frigate that accompanied INS Vinash, the missile boat that rained havoc on Karachi with its missiles during Operation Python, which succeeded Operation Trident.”
Petty Officer L.V. Rao, who was on board INS Rajput, R-Class destroyer, during the 1971, took pride in saying that they were the slayer of INS Ghazi.
The march was organised by Veterans India and led by P. Chandra Shekar, who served in the medical wing of the armed forces.