Tags:
Journalism of Courage
AHMEDABAD, JULY 8: Part of the 12 Mahar company that went on a near-suicidal mission to capture a peak in the Mushkoh valley last month, Sepoy Hariram Goruji Prajapati, 24, has returned from the front, with two bullets in his leg and shrapnel in his hands and eye. But the wounds haven8217;t dampened his spirit. Raring to go back into the battlefield where he fought barely six feet away from late Naik Mukesh Rathod, Sepoy Hariram tells a gripping tale of valour.
The company undertook the 10-day mission on a ration of 35 puris and a handful of shakkarparas per soldier. They moved in absolute silence, ate snow to quench their thirst, and closed in on enemy bunkers up the hill in the freezing cold of the night, spending daytime hidden behind boulders. quot;When we were about 500 metres below their post, we could see the Afghans in their thick white coats and green trousers, faces covered by black scarves. Almost seven feet tall and well built, they made us look like midgets. The Pakistani soldiers were slimmerand smaller. They were all well protected from the weather and wore snow shoes,quot; he says. quot;For us, the food really did not matter. No one felt like eating, we were so fed up of shakarparas in a few days. It was sheer adrenaline that kept us going,quot; says Hariram.
When the regiment launched another attack and captured the post about 10 days later, they noticed something in the gorge. Using binoculars, they saw that it was a man lying on his stomach with one hand in his pocket. When the body was recovered it could not be identified but for Mukesh8217;s I-card and a letter from his wife in his pocket.
Naik Mukesh Rathod was cremated in Srinagar at 4 pm on June 28 with full military honours.
