New book recalls ‘head cutting in jhatka style by Gurkhas’ panicking Pakistani soldiers in Kargil War

Guwahati: A new book has come out with graphic accounts of ferocious war tales of Gurkha soldiers chopping off heads of Pakistanis with khukris in the Kargil War, setting panic in the ranks of the intruders in the high hills of the Himalayas in 1999.

“…on a moonlit night, khukris had glinted, blood had shone on stone, and Pakistani heads had come tumbling down the slopes of Khalubar. The valiant Gurkhas coming up the slopes had been undaunted by the withering fire from the bunkers above. The Pakistanis had fled hearing the war cries of the ferocious Gurkhas charging into the enemy bunkers with the blood-curdling war cry Jai Mahakali, Ayo Gurkhali,” Vikram Jit Singh in his first-hand account of the Kargil War wrote in Flowers on a Kargil Cliff.

Singh detailed the audacious attacks of 1/11 Gurkha Rifles on the Khalubar Ridge in the Kargil War as the soldiers climbed the high hills to attack the Pakistanis after the sunset.

“In the wee hours of 5–6 July 1999, rifleman Ganesh Pradhan had run out of ammunition for his INSAS 5.56-mm rifle while engaged in an intense, close-quarter battle to clear the Pakistani bunkers lodged on the Khalubar South Ridge. His Charlie Company’s second-in-command, Captain VA Joshi, lent him three rounds of ammunition, and Pradhan unleashed his khukri as he ventured into the bunkers,” added Singh in the book, published by The Browser.

Singh quotes Pradhan, saying that “I saw an enemy soldier wearing a tracksuit in the bunker’s toilet, and I leapt at him before he could raise his rifle. My khukri, with an angled-down blow starting from the top of the neck, did the job in one stroke”. Pradhan told Singh that “the khukri is better than a rifle in body-contact battles”.

Singh also quotes Pradhan’s commanding officer during the War, Colonel Lalit Rai, to share accounts of the bravery of Gurkha soldiers. “My short Gurkha lads charged at the tall Pathan Pakistanis and leapt at them with khukris glinting in the moonlight. The charge was fired up with our war cry, Jai Mahakali, Ayo Gurkhali, which reverberated in the mountains. I saw Pakistani heads tumbling down the mountain past me as I climbed,” the book quotes Rai.

The commanding officer shared that he thought the tumbling heads were rocks coming down at me. “The Pakistanis panicked in the face of the Gurkhas’ ferocity. They fled as they felt that head cutting in the jhatka style by the Gurkhas would send them to hell as this method of slaughter was considered haram by them,” Rai is quoted in the book saying.

“They panicked, and my boys chased them at the high altitudes just like school children playing games,” Singh quotes Rai recalling the battle fought of the Gurkhas to evict the Pakistanis.

Singh also shared an account of Captain Manoj Pandey, PVC (Posthumous), of the 1/11 Gurkha Rifles, who defied his mother’s advice to lead soldiers in charging the Pakistani positions. “It was on ‘Bunker Area’, Khalubar Ridge, that Pandey had fought his most glorious battle as 5 Platoon Commander during the night of 2–3 July 1999. Pandey had busted three bunkers before taking a burst from a machine gun in the forehead while attacking the fourth,” recalled Singh in the book.

But Pandey’s mother was fearful of the deadly prospects of war and had asked her son to stay back from the frontline. “The axiom of war families is that the braver the army son, the more worried is mum back home. Manoj’s mum, Mohini (now deceased) had told him when she spoke to him on the STD landline phone, ‘Manoj, do not venture too forward into battle as you are an officer. Send the jawans ahead,” Singh shared the conversation of the mother and son before the Captain had led his soldiers against the enemy fronts.

“Mummy, if you and I are going somewhere and there is trouble, will you, as a mother, put your child in front or will you remain in front and keep me behind? In the same way, the Gurkha jawans are like my children. I will stay ahead when the firing starts and keep my jawans behind me,” the book quoted Pandey telling his mother.

The author stated in the book that “Pandey led the charge on the bunkers braving the proverbial hail of fire. His last words to his battling, valiant Gurkhas, as he lay in front of the Pakistani bunkers, were: na chodnoo (do not spare them, press on with the attack).”