Group Captain (Retd) Dilip Parulkar shows a sweater used by prisoners of war in Pakistan. He poses with actors in the upcoming film The Great Indian Escape. Pavan Khengre
“IF WE had not been mad enough, we would not have escaped.” This is how Group Captain (Retd) Dilip Parulkar described his escape from a Pakistani prison during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.
Parulkar was one of three pilots who were captured by Pakistan while carrying out bombing operations and who escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in Rawalpindi. Their story has now been made into a movie titled ‘The Great Indian Escape’.
Parulkar, along with director and editor Taranjiet Namdhari, were speaking to reporters at the Air Force Station, Lohegaon on Thursday about the upcoming film. Their daring escape has been one-of-its-kind in the history of the Indian armed forces.
On December 10 in 1971, then Flight Lieutenant Parulkar was on a sortie to bomb a radar station near Lahore, when his Sukhoi 7 was shot down and he landed near Lahore. This was not the first time that Parulkar’s plane was shot down. During the 1965 war, his Hunter fighter aircraft was shot down too. “My family thought, I could not fly the planes and was shot down every time,” said Parulkar.
The film, which is slated to be released in October, has been produced by an ensemble of 25 producers. It stars Raghav Rishi, son of actor Mukesh Rishi as Parulkar and Raaj Singh Arora, as the then Flt Lieutenant Grewal, who was one of two others who escaped with Parulkar on the night of August 13 in 1972.
