The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

lid back on again, he closes his eyes for a fraction of a second and heaves a sigh of relief. He then tugs the rope in his left hand and starts crawling again.

    Eighty-nine-year-old Colonel J. P. Chopra, Vir Chakra, sits in his bungalow in Sector 31, Noida, with Pepper and Cookie, his two spitzes scampering around him. ‘Cookie leave,’ he says brusquely, and Cookie stops wagging her tail and squeezes herself under the sofa. Pepper slinks out of the door and hides behind the curtain, waiting for a chance to join the conversation again.
    It has been more than sixty-five years since the Colonel and Rane were together in the same company, but the colonel’s memory of the time is vivid. They were from the Engineers unit, and their job was to clear mines, make roads where there were none, and help the Army attack the Pakistani raiders in Kashmir. ‘It was late 1947, war clouds were looming, and Pakistan was attacking Kashmir from two directions—from the Srinagar airfield and also from the Jammu side where they were coming on to the Akhnoor—Naushera axis,’ he recalls.
    The Indian Army had to pull back from Jhangar and retreat to Naushera. Then they were ordered to go back and attack Jhangar. While 2 nd Lt Chopra and a section of11 people were tasked with clearing the path towards Jhangar, Rane was with two sections (22 men), trying to make a road for the tanks to attack Rajouri.
    The men, would cross nalas that would swell from six inches of water to ten feet depths if it rained. They would work with little food and rest, often subsisting on dry shakarparas to get the work done as fast as they could. Persisting even as a tank was blown up when it went over a mine, they lost count of days and dates as they cleared the dead and helped injured soldiers, laying out roads, removing obstacles and clearing mines so that the Army could reach Rajouri and stop the carnage the Pakistani raiders were indulging in.
    To Rane goes the credit of getting the Army to Rajouri and thus saving many innocent lives.
Advance to Rajouri
    It is 6 a. m. on a sunny April day when Rama Raghoba Rane and his section are put on mine-clearing duty starting from Nadpur South Fort area, near Naushera. Their task is to create a safe passage for tanks so that they can move from Naushera to Rajouri, where the raiders are attacking the civilian population.
    After the recapture of Jhangar, the Pakistani army flees, but not before completely destroying the national highway from Rajouri to Punj. With no other way to reach Rajouri the Indian troops are ordered to create their own route till Chingas, which is an old Mughal passage to Kashmir. 2
nd
Lt Rane and his section of 37 Assault Field Company are attached to 4 Dogra, which starts the advance to Rajouri on 8 April 1948, with an attack on Barwali ridge, 11 km north of Naushera. They drive out the enemy and capture Barwali ridge by 4. 30 p. m. but cannot go beyond because not only is the area hilly, there are also massive road blocks and minefields on the road.
    This is when Rane and his small team of Sappers are pressed into action. They start clearing the road blocks, but it gets dark soon and they are surprised by enemy fire. The Pakistanis have returned and are launching mortar bursts at the men trying to clear the road. In a stroke of bad luck, Rane loses four of his men. Sappers Abaji More and Raghunath More are killed; Sappers Sitaram Sutar and Keshav Ambre are badly wounded and later die in hospital, while a splinter hits Lance Naik M. K. Jadhav in the spine, paralysing him for life. Rane also gets a deep cut from a splinter that slashes his thigh but he refuses to be evacuated despite the heavy bleeding from his leg and asks only for first aid.
    The bulldozer operator does not hear the enemy fire since his own dozer is making so much noise and has to be pulled out and evacuated. Though the Pakistanis are chased off again, plans to clear the road block at night are dropped.
    Rane returns at dawn the