Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 26

His body reached us first and then his letter which he had written three days before he was martyred. He was only 26!” shared Bhai Kirpal Singh, father of Shaheed Daljit Singh who was martyred on July 11 in 1999. On the 21st anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, the father remembered how in the letter he had asked his wife to take care of the family as anything could happen to him in the war.

“He was not well and had come home on sick leave. When the war broke, he insisted on going back even though I asked him not to. I accompanied him to the Jammu railway station and then asked him where to go now. Daljit then said I must go back as what others will think of him when they will see a sepoy has come with his father,” Kirpal Singh shared and stopped talking as he was choked with emotion. After a pause, he started again and said, “He hugged me and took my blessings. I took another train, and my son left, but he never looked back even though I was looking at him until the time train left the station. That was the last time I saw him,” said an emotional father.

Shaheed Daljit Singh’s brother Kuldeep Singh said, “I was 23 when he was martyred and we always looked up to him. Now his only daughter has moved to Canada on a study basis.”

Kargil Vijay Diwas was celebrated on Sunday at War Memorial by the Kashyap Naujawan Dharmik Sabha where only three families of the martyrs were invited because of the pandemic and they were honoured by the sabha. Kuldeep Singh said even though the situation was not favourable because of the pandemic, he did not want to miss the opportunity to pay tributes to his brother. “For the past 21 years, the Kashyap Naujawan Dharmik Sabha has been organising events on every July 26 in the city to remember the martyrs who laid down their lives for the country.

Sharing the journey, Pawan Kumar, president of the sabha, said they first started organising the event in a mohalla and then they started holding it in palaces.

The president said, “When he is asked why he gets so emotional for the families of the martyrs, though nobody from his own home was in the Army or has remained a freedom fighter, he replies that whosoever sacrificed their lives for the country were his family members.

“I always noticed that people used to have posters and calendars with pictures of film stars on them, instead of freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country. And then the Kargil War happened and several reports of those martyrs who lost their lives started coming,” shared Kumar, adding that then he decided to reach out to those people who had lost their kin. “Every year, we invite the families of the martyrs — not only of the Kargil War martyrs, but of all those who laid their lives in different wars. They have become my family,” said Pawan Kumar.

Spirit of bravery, sacrifice palpable in Mukerian

Interestingly, walk into the interiors of Mukerian tehsil in Hoshiarpur and the spirit of bravery and sacrifice is palpable. Gates and schools of otherwise nondescript villages here stand out as a testament to the sacrifice of those who laid down their lives in the Kargil war, which lasted a little over two months, ended on July 26, 1999. As many as 13 young jawans, all in their 20s, from villages in the tehsil had laid down their lives in the war. Nangal Bihala, Repur, Nangal Bailankhan, Bhadiaran Di Kuda, Bhambotara and Tohlu villages all lost a brave man to the war.