AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 157 of 332 7 Our Visit to Kargil Gp Capt L V Mohandas Genre: Reminiscence fter participating in Indo-Pak War of 1971 at Pathankot as a young officer in IAF, I had the “Will” to fight Pakistan Air Force from anywhere. I volunteered for frontline posting in Air Force at all times. When I was the Head of Faculty at the College of Defence Management (CDM) at Secunderabad, Kargil war broke out in May 1999. We were all advised by the MOD to be prepared to move to forward bases at short notice if situation warranted. To hide our identities by the enemy intelligence, all our telephone lines including residential phones were cut off and the only telephone link was through the single telephone of PA to the Commandant of the College. There were no other means of communication except STD booths in civil area. It was a non-mobile era and we were cut off from any information flow. The only information we used to get was during the faculty discussions on the war front. Our hearts were with our soldiers, officers and pilots who were participating in the war zone. There were no other ways of expressing our anguish and solidarity with our heroes at the war front. After my superannuation from CDM, I was with Confederation of Indian Industry from January 2003 till I called it a day in May 2014. Since many of the senior officers of Army were either my colleagues or my students at CDM, I was inspired to plan a trip to J&K in May/June 2016 with my wife, daughter, son-in-law and kids. It was almost impossible to get any mess accommodation in AF or Army during summer season as their own family members visited them in J&K. I drew a blank from Air Force, Srinagar, due to very limited accommodation. I contacted my LDMC course mate and block mate Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhag, who was then the Chief of the Army Staff for accommodation and visit to various places in J&K including Kargil. I was not even connected to the COAS. Staff officer himself arranged accommodation at Srinagar as the main base. Wg Cdr Kamal Singh Oberh, posted at Jammu, became our coordinator with Army, Northern Command and the staff officer. Since we didn’t want Army vehicle, as terrorists were targeting Army convoys and cars, we hired an Innova for 11-12 days from Jammu Railway station, back to the station. The driver was very clueful and experienced. Wherever there were check posts, he used to caution me to show Identity card at places manned by Army and at other places behave like a civilian tourist. Army Northern Command was closely monitoring our trip and daily movements. The first halt was at Dharmund, where we A