AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 4 – War Diary CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 34 of 167 clouds gathering in the subcontinent had resulted in the commencement of the Indo-Pak war of 1971, on 3 December 1971. “Fortune favours the Brave” so goes the adage. Our Battalion 10 JAKRIF was deployed for the defence of Bhutan to safeguard against a possible Chinese threat. On the Evening of 5 December 1971, the Battalion was pleasantly surprised to get orders from our formation commander, Brigadier Adi A Irani of 167 Infantry Brigade, to mobilize for joining the war effort, and to move to the East PAK border and join the newly formed 101 Communication Zone Area commanded by Major General Gandharv Singh Nagra. Our Battalion reached the Border post of Kamalpur on the morning of 7 December. The leading battalion of 85 Infantry brigade had already cleared the PAK border outposts and pushed back the Jamalpur defences, which withdrew in disarray. Our battalion was concentrated at SHERPUR and were closely following the leading formation towards TANGAIL where the Enemy forces were surprised by our PARA battalion which was air dropped to surprise and force him to retreat. 85 Infantry Brigade was halted on 12 Jan 1971 on the banks of the TURAG River due to the demolished bridge across it. 167 Infantry Brigade was tasked to relentlessly pursue the enemy and hasten towards the advance to Dacca. Seizing the God-given opportunity to take part in the operations, CO 10 JAK RIF volunteered to take on the task and decided to despatch a self-contained company strength to establish a road block and ambush the PAK troops. Since the PAK troops were in disarray, our swiftness to chase the withdrawing forces would be like a pursuit operation. I volunteered being the senior company commander. My company successfully established a road block and lay in wait to ambush the enemy. On the night of 14/15 Dec 1971, in the early hours of the day our first important catch in our ambush, was to halt a rushing enemy Jeep killing all the occupants to include a Pak officer Captain Navashish Ali Khan, a daring young officer. As a war memento, I removed his weapon and rank titles and put his body under a tree in the vicinity. The battle raged on till 4 PM and with the grace of God and excellent fighting spirit of my troops, we inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, who was forced to surrender and lay down all the arms and ammunition. Our operation was successful. My company had suffered two fatal causalities. We lost Havildar Ajit Singh and L/Naik Harbans Lal. I as their Company commander organized the military funeral in the battlefield and lit the two pyres praying for their souls to rest in peace. A section of troops from the company presented arms as a matter of respect and fired three rounds as the gun salute.