Letters From Kargil

Documents recovered from the bodies of enemy soldiers killed at Kargil tell the story of a Pakistani military misadventure and the failure of Indian intelligence two decades ago.

- Sandeep Unnithan

The letter, dated May 15, 1999, bore the crest of two crossed swords under a burning sun. Draped around the swords was a sash with words from a couplet by Persian poet Saadi Shirazi: Pir sho biyamooz (grow old learning).

‘My dear Saeed Ahmed,’ Major General Javaid Afzal Khan, commandant of the Pakistan Army’s Command and StaffCollege in Quetta whose insignia this was, wrote to the young Major from the 60 Baloch Regiment in that letter. ‘I felicitate you on your selection for the 2000 Staff Course, which is a reflection of your dedication to service and higher standing in the army. We are looking forward to welcoming you and hope that your stay will both be professionally rewarding and socially enjoyable.’ Nagra had been part of the 12th battalion of the Northern Light Infantry (12 NLI), one of the five battalions the Pakistan army sent nearly 10 kilometres deep into Indian territory in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The letter—sent to Nagra’s regiment in Kharian in Punjab province—was among the wealth of documentary evidence the Indian Army recovered when the fighting stopped on July 26, 1999. Nagra was among those who had managed to escape. He went on to rise in service and is currently Inspector General of the Frontier Corps in the South Balochistan region. But his comrades then were not as lucky.

When they went to reclaim the heights, soldiers of the Indian Army found bodies of over 200 Pakistani soldiers lodged in bunkers or contorted in shallow trenches, hit probably by artillery fire from Indian howitzers. As they went through the pockets and rucksacks of the dead fighters, the men of the Indian Army recovered documents that helped them paint a profile of the unseen enemy who had sat hidden in stone sangars overlooking National Highway 1A, that connects Kashmir valley to Jammu and the rest of India.