POINT 4812, JULY 11: If killing the enemy is the soldier's job in war, what's burying the enemy? The answer came at a solemn ceremony, to the dirge of shells and gunfire, when Indian troops buried 13 Pakistani soldiers at Point 4812 in the Batalik sub-sector.There was both irony and tragedy in this act of grace under fire. The same pickaxes and shovels which the Pak soldiers used to build their bunkers were now used by Indian troops to dig their graves. And the same hands of the Indian soldiers, which until a few hours ago carried AK rifles, were now raised in prayer. They may have been enemies out to kill each other but when one side had won and the other had died, it wasn't so black and white. Letters recovered from the intruders' bodies told stories of love and loss. A letter from a wife to her husband about their seven-month-old baby; from a father to his son that he better watch out, Indian forces were closing in on Pak positions. ``You must take care, beta,'' the father wrote.For a briefmoment, it didn't seem to matter that it was a Pakistani father or a Pakistani wife. And so at a height of 15,500 feet on the Kharbular Ridge, with the chill wind blowing in their faces, 60 soldiers of the 12 Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry dug the graves, ringed them with bullet-marked stones, before lowering the bodies one by one. The bodies, including those of Captain Qamar and Subedar Mirza, were found under a pile of stones, hastily buried by the fleeing enemy. ``We could see their legs and arms sticking out from underneath the stones when we finally captured Point 4812 after a two-day battle. We could not lug the bodies down and keeping in mind the sentiments of the Muslim troops of our battalion, we decided to re-bury the enemy's bodies,'' said the 12 JAKLI's post commander of Point 4812.It took Havildar Mohammad Younis's team of seven men six hours to build each of the 13 graves. ``The ground was too hard to dig so we built an enclosure of stones and slipped the bodies into the intruders' sleepingbags,'' said Lance Naik Sohrawardy, who acted as the maulvi for the Jinazaah (burial service).And when the grave was covered, its surface littered with empty machine guns, AK rifle cases and stray tufts of grass, 60 Indian soldiers of the 12 JAKLI gathered in prayer. Hav Younis, Hav Sonullah Khan, Rifleman Abdul Qadir, Rifleman Abdul Aziz, Rifleman Mohammad Munchhi and Rifleman Abdul Qayoom lowered their heads in respect while Lance Naik Sohrawardy offered the Namaaz-e-Jinazaah. The first words were the Tadbir: Allah-u-Akbar (God is the Greatest). ``During the battle, this was the enemy's war cry,'' said Younis. ``Now we are saying Allah-u-Akbar.'' Thrice, Lance Naik said the words and all three times, the 60 soldiers stood silently, their head bowed, their hands raised in prayer. And then the last salaam to the departed soul before Indian hands used Pakistani shovels to dig the earth, cover the grave.Within minutes, however, it was all over. The fleeting silence gone, it was back to the sound of shellscoming from the Muntho Dalo area, the machine guns at Kukarthang. The battle for Batalik was won. Top
