I. Ahmed Wani:
Every year, 26 July arrives quietly. But in Dras, the wind seems to remember. It moves over the stone walls of the Kargil War Memorial, past 527 names carved in silence. Twenty-seven years ago today, in 1999, the guns fell silent on those peaks. Operation Vijay was complete. The tricolour flew again over Tololing, Tiger Hill, and the ridges of Batalik. India had won. But the victory came home in coffins too.
This day is not about war. It is about the men who fought it. Boys, really. Most were in their twenties. Some were teenagers. They had mothers waiting for letters. Wives who had just learnt to write their new surnames. Children who would never remember their faces. They climbed slopes of ice at 16,000 feet, where breathing itself is a battle. The enemy sat above them, dug in and hidden. Retreat made sense. They climbed anyway.
How It Began
In early May 1999, shepherds near Batalik noticed strangers on the heights. They told the Army. What looked like a small intrusion turned out to be a planned invasion. Pakistani soldiers had crossed the Line of Control in winter and occupied our posts. They sat above National Highway 1A, the lifeline to Ladakh.
India responded with Operation Vijay. The Air Force joined with Operation Safed Sagar. Bofors guns roared day and night. But in the end, the mountains had to be taken the old way. On foot. Face to face. Bunker by bunker.
On 13 June, Tololing fell to our men after brutal fighting. On 4 July, after a night climb that defies belief, 18 Grenadiers and their comrades took Tiger Hill. On 7 July, Captain Vikram Batra died taking Point 4875. He was 24. His radio message from an earlier victory had already become the heartbeat of the nation: “Yeh Dil Maange More!”
Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles fell at Khalubar. He had once written words that still give us goosebumps: “If death strikes before I prove my blood, I swear I will kill death.” Both men received the Param Vir Chakra. Neither lived to wear it.
By 26 July, every post was back in Indian hands. 527 of our soldiers were martyred. More than 1,300 were wounded. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee stood before the nation and the fallen. His government declared this day Kargil Vijay Diwas, so that no Indian would ever forget.
The Sons of the Valley
Here is something every Indian should know. Kashmir did not just witness this war. Kashmir fought it. Sons of the Valley climbed those peaks wearing the uniform of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry. Their motto says everything: “Balidanam Vir Lakshanam.” Sacrifice is the mark of the brave.
Lance Naik Ghulam Mohammad Khan came from Naribal, a small village in Rafiabad, Baramulla. Born on 1 February 1973, he was the son of Sher Wali Khan, a simple village family. He studied up to Class 9 in the village school. Neighbours remember him as an honest, hardworking boy. In December 1991, at 18, he joined the JAK Light Infantry. His battalion, 12 JAK LI, came straight from a hard tenure in Siachen to the Batalik sector.
On the night of 7 June 1999, his company attacked Point 5203. At 4:30 in the morning, he spotted about 20 enemy soldiers moving towards his position. He picked up his rocket launcher and knocked out three of them. Comrades fell around him. Eight were gone. He did not step back. He kept firing until multiple bullets found him. He was 26. He left behind his young wife, Zarina Akhtar. India gave him the Vir Chakra. His village gave him tears that have not dried in 27 years. Even today, officers visit Naribal to bow before his family.
Rifleman Abdul Salam Dar belonged to Srigufwara in Anantnag, a village sitting on the banks of a stream of the Lidder river. He grew up amid apple orchards and paddy fields. He chose the uniform. He too served in 12 JAK LI. He too had just come down from the ice of Siachen when the war called. At Point 5203, he fought beside his officer, Captain Amol Kalia. He fell there, on that frozen height, with his captain and nine comrades. A boy from Anantnag died so that Kargil could stay Indian.
Rifleman Ishtiyaq Ahmed of the same battalion also gave his life in that terrible battle at Point 5203. It was one of the costliest single fights of the entire war for the Indian Army.
Think about this for a moment. Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs of one battalion, from Jammu, from the Valley, from across India, died on the same slope, in the same hour, for the same flag. Lance Naik Khan, Rifleman Dar, Havildar Rajinder Singh, Rifleman Darshan Lal. Their blood froze together on that mountain. No force on earth can divide what they united.
What They Teach Us
Lal Bahadur Shastri gave us the cry “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan.” Kargil showed us why the jawan comes first in that line. These men were ordinary. That is the point. They ate the same rice we eat. They missed home the way we do. Yet when the moment came, they walked towards death without a speech, without a camera, without a complaint.
The epitaph at the Kohima war memorial, repeated at Dras, says it best: “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.”
They gave their today. All of it. The wedding they had planned. The child they never held. The old age they never reached.
Our Side of the Promise
So what do we owe them? Not just candles on 26 July. We owe them memory. Tell your children about Vikram Batra, yes. But also tell them about Ghulam Mohammad Khan of Baramulla and Abdul Salam Dar of Anantnag. Say their names aloud. Names are how the dead stay with us.
We owe their families care, not just on anniversaries but through the year. A martyr’s widow should never have to stand in a queue to prove her husband died for us. We owe the Army our trust. And we owe the nation our unity, because that unity is exactly what those men died defending.
The peaks of Kargil still stand. The snow still falls on Tololing and Tiger Hill. The men who took them back will not return. But every free morning in this country is their gift.
To the 527, and to the brave sons of the Kashmir Valley among them, a grateful nation bows its head.
You climbed. We stand. We will not forget.
Jai Hind.
