New Delhi: The Indian Army was caught by surprise when Pakistani intruders occupied towering peaks, perched at 15,000 feet to 17,000 feet on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kargil sector, but as the gravity of the invasion unfolded as well as its strategic implications, the army mobilised swiftly to flush out the enemy and regain the lost territory.
Every battle fought across the 170km high-altitude frontier was fierce, involved chilling close-quarters combat, cost the lives of young soldiers, and proved critical in securing a decisive victory over the wily neighbour who sought to realign LoC in this sensitive sector through a series of coordinated manoeuvres.
Here are the five key battles that helped change the course of the 1999 Kargil war.
BATTLE OF TOLOLING Perched at almost 16,000 feet near Dras, the Tololing peak offered the Pakistani intruders a sweeping view of a key stretch of the Srinagar-Leh highway, a critical supply line, and was one of the deepest incursions by the enemy.
It allowed the well-armed intruders, backed by artillery support, to dominate the highway with observation and fire, interdict the Indian Army’s build-up for countermeasures, and impede the troop movement to forward posts. The intruders had to be cleared out from Tololing at the earliest, but the army’s initial attempts yielded no breakthrough, as in many other sectors.
The first attack was launched by infantry soldiers on the night of May 22, 1999, and the assaults intensified in the following days. However, it was only on June 13 that the enemy was finally evicted from Tololing, the first major success in the war. The breakthrough win, spearheaded by 2 Rajputana Rifles and 18 Grenadiers, whose soldiers were later decorated with several wartime honours, crushed the morale of the enemy and boosted the confidence of the Indian soldiers.
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“There was no looking back after that as the army took one peak after another. It was a difficult battle as we had no time for acclimatisation and reconnaissance, we didn’t know what we were up against because there was no intelligence, we didn’t have snow clothing and the artillery support came in late. Yet the infantry soldier proved his mettle and gave the country something to cheer about,” said Brigadier Kushal Thakur (retd), who was then commanding 18 Grenadiers that lost 25 soldiers, including two officers, in the battle. Thakur’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel R Vishwanathan, who was awarded Vir Chakra, died in his arms.
BATTLE OF POINT 5140 The point lies 1.5 km north of Tololing, on the same ridge line across a feature called Hump. A fresh offensive was planned to dislodge the intruders from Point 5140, the highest post captured by the Pakistan Army in the Tololing complex, after some previous attempts were deflected by the enemy holding well-fortified positions.
On June 18, soldiers of 13 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel YK Joshi, were ordered to scout the area and gather intelligence on the enemy’s deployments and defences before a multipronged attack was authorised by the Indian Army, which was cautiously optimistic after seizing control of Tololing and some nearby features.
“The events that transpired during the battle (of Tololing) made me think of the difficult days ahead, when we had to clear the enemy from other areas. But after realising the determination and the fighting spirit of our troops, I was convinced that we could do it,” General VP Malik, who was the army chief during the war, wrote after retirement in his book Kargil: From Surprise to Victory.
By now, the 155mm FH 77 BO2 guns, better known as Bofors, had arrived on the scene to provide much-needed firepower support and began pounding the targets on June 19, shortly before 13 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles began its assault with Captains Vikram Batra and SS Jamwal leading the charge as per the plan made by Joshi with the element of surprise at its core.
Still, the assault teams had overcome stiff resistance from the enemy to take back Point 5140 on June 20, with Batra killing four Pakistani soldiers in fierce hand-to-hand combat. His iconic victory slogan “Yeh Dil Maange More” turned the Pepsi tagline into a motto for a generation of Indians.
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BATTLE OF TIGER HILL As the war raged on along the mountain frontier, and India sent more reinforcements to strengthen its military posture, the army’s next priority was to clear Tiger Hill, riding on the momentum it had built on the back of successes in some other areas.
It was another important vantage point overlooking the Srinagar-Leh highway. The critical mission to get Tiger Hill back was assigned to Thakur’s 18 Grenadiers, which had earned its spurs at Tololing and Hump, with 8 Sikh as the reserve unit.
The battalion launched the attack on July 3, backed by a heavy volume of artillery fire, after the Indian Air Force’s Mirage 2000s had dropped laser-guided bombs on Tiger Hill and prepared the ground for the final push. However, a complicated sequence of unforeseen events unfolded as the soldiers were closing in on the intruders.
Accurate fire from the dominating positions halted the advance of one of the companies of 18 Grenadiers, even as two other companies, led by Captain Sachin Nimbalkar and Lieutenant Balwan Singh, pushed ahead grittily through the intimidating terrain and took positions a mere stone’s throw from the hilltop.
“At 0400 hours on 4 July, after a carefully orchestrated artillery bombardment, Nimbalkar and Singh along with their men approached Tiger Hill Top by climbing a sheer cliff and caught the enemy unawares. After a spell of hand-to-hand fighting, they succeeded in capturing the objective. Although 18 Grenadiers held the Top now, linking up with them was not easy. When the initial surprise wore off, the enemy started gearing up for launching counter-attacks,” Malik wrote in the book.
All of 19, Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav waged what is perhaps the most well-known battle of the Kargil war. He was the only survivor of an attack that killed six of his comrades and riddled him with 15 bullets. Yadav’s solo counter-attack killed seven enemy soldiers.
While Tiger Hill was captured on July 4, the Indian flag was hoisted atop it only on July 8. In the intervening days, the army sent in the reserve units to beat back counter-attacks by the intruders and capture two key positions, a mission it accomplished with aplomb.
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BATTLE OF POINT 4875:
The occupation of Point 4875 also made the Srinagar-Leh highway vulnerable to enemy artillery fire. The preparations to capture it began on June 24. The prime responsibility to clear the area fell on the shoulders of 13 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, which had taken back Point 5140 on June 20 and established a formidable reputation as a unit that could deliver in trying circumstances.
The carefully planned attack, supervised by Joshi from the front line, was launched on July 4, with Major S Vijay Bhaskar and Major Gurpreet Singh leading their men from two separate approaches to capture Flat Top area of Point 4875. It was in this battle that Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, a leading scout of an attacking column, killed three Pakistani soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. He was later decorated with the Param Vir Chakra.
The fighting, however, raged on as the two companies led by Bhaskar and Singh were pinned down by heavy artillery and automatic fire.
It was then that reinforcements were sent under Major Vikas Vohra and Captain Vikram Batra to ward off a grim outcome. By July 5, after some of the most intense fighting witnessed during the war, Flat Top was back in Indian hands. However, holding on to these objectives, which the enemy too considered important, was as difficult as capturing them, army officials said.
Batra’s glorious run in the war ended on July 7, the day Point 4875 fell to 13 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles.
Shedding light on one of the defining moments of the battle, Batra’s Param Vir Chakra citation says he engaged the enemy in fierce hand-to-hand combat and killed five of them — a replay of his heroism in the Battle of Point 5140. “Despite serious injuries, he crawled towards the enemy and hurled grenades…clearing the position. Leading from the front, he rallied his men and pressed on (with) the attack and achieved a near impossible military task in the face of heavy enemy fire.”
BATTLE OF KHALUBAR
India was now cruising towards victory, and the Pakistan Army could do little to stop its momentum.
The enemy’s administrative and logistics base at Muntho Dhalo was northwest of Khalubar. The capture of Khalubar, assigned to 1/11 Gorkha Rifles and 22 Grenadiers, was critical to cutting the intruders’ supply lines.
Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey led a series of bold attacks and cleared well-held enemy positions before he fell to enemy bullets. The gutsy Pandey, who was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, lived by his motto: “Some goals are so worthy, it’s glorious even to fail.”
The officer’s glowing citation details how his courageous actions galvanised the Gorkhas under his command and paved the way for another significant victory. “His finest hour was during the advance to Khalubar. On the night of 02/03 July 1999, as the platoon approached its final objective, it came under heavy enemy fire from the surrounding heights. The officer was asked to clear the enemy positions to prevent his battalion from getting daylighted, being in a vulnerable position.”
Pandey quickly moved his men to an advantageous position and ordered some of them to clear a set of enemy positions as he led the attack on four other positions.
“Fearlessly assaulting the first enemy position, he killed two enemy personnel and proceeded to assault the second and destroyed it by killing two more enemy personnel. He was injured on the shoulder and legs by enemy fire while clearing the third position. Undaunted, he led the assault on the fourth position and destroyed it with a grenade, even as he got a fatal medium machine gun burst on his forehead,” the citation said.
“It is this singular daredevil act of the officer which provided the critical firm base, which finally led to the capture of Khalubar.”
The feature was taken back on July 6.
Citations only provide fleeting glimpses of the life-altering moments in the war zone — moments that are even more profound.
