AFVOA Newsletter of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 01 / 2021 Page 48 of 123 1 Tributes to My Wartime Brethren Col A Krishnaswami VrC VSM & Bar Genre: Reflections am proud to belong to the illustrious Regiment, The JAMMU AND KASHMIR RIFLES. It has a history and tradition of over two hundred years. In 1841, the gallant General Zorawar Singh of our regiment extended the frontiers of our country up to TIBET in the East and to Baltistan in the West. We are the only Regiment in proud possession of the captured Chinese MANTALAI Flag in the Battle of Tibet in 1824. The history of Regiment covers numerous acts of valour and the accolades it had won in the various campaigns and wars that it had partaken and earning 26 Battle honours to adorn its proud cap and an array of gallantry awards. Ours is the only Regiment of the Indian Army to have been awarded TWO PARAM VIR CHAKRAS in one action to late Capt. Vikram Batra and Rifleman now Subedar Sanjay Kumar of 13 JAK RIF during the KARGIL operations in 1999. The then Chief of the Army Staff General VP Malik recognized the valour and fighting spirit of the battalion and awarded the COAS CITATION OF “BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE” to the battalion. The national icon late Capt. Vikram Batra with his “DIL MANGE MORE” slogan had raised the national morale of all our youth. Ours is one amongst the largest recipients of gallantry awards in the Army. Surely this humble veteran is entitled to share the pride after having served for 31 years in the Regiment. Our Armed forces had made the nation proud by achieving a spectacular victory in virtually creating a new nation called Bangladesh from the erstwhile East Pakistan. Our Section 5 – War Diary I