CHANDIGARH: Brigadier Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, Maha Vir Chakra, was the quintessential soldier. Fearless and selfeffacing. The hero of the famous Battle of Laungewala remained so until he breathed his last at Fortis Hospital, Mohali, around 8:30am on Saturday, just a few days short of his 78th birthday on Nov 22.
The cremation will take place at the Sector 25 cremation ground in Chandigarh on Monday. According to his eldest son Hardeep Chandpuri, he was diagnosed with blood cancer in July.
Border, the 1997 film in which Sunny Deol played his role with flamboyance, catapulted the shy Chandpuri to instant fame but he remained unchanged. In a conversation with HT a few months ago, he said, “My jawans had as much a role to play in the victory as I did. We should never forget that.” Filmmaker JP Dutta, who directed Border, says he grew up hearing about Chandpuri’s bravery from his brother, late Deepak Dutta, one of the fighter pilots who came to the battalion’s rescue on December 7, 1971. Then a major, 31-year-old Chandpuri was the commander of 23 Punjab guarding Laungewala post on the Rajasthan border with 120 men when the unit was attacked by a Pakistani force comprising three battalions (3,000 men) and 70 tanks.
Severely outnumbered, Chandpuri’s company repulsed two attacks and held on to the post despite being encircled by the Pakistanis.
He won the Maha Vir Chakra for his action; in all, his company received seven gallantry awards. Military historian Mandeep Bajwa says Chandpuri’s brigade commander, Brigadier R O Kharbanda, who was in touch with the officer throughout the assault, called him a “solid soldier who held his ground in the face of insurmountable odds.”
A man not given to flamboyance, Chandpuri fired up soldiers by reminding them of the epic Battle of Chamkaur Garhi in which Guru Gobind Singh countered an army of Mughals with only a handful of men. He used to say, “No army can win without josh (passion).”
Major General KAS Bhullar (Retd), who was posted as the commander of Jodhpur RAPID division, remembers inviting him for an annual presentation on the Battle of Laungewala. “Chandpuri never charged us anything and would come by train.”
The soft-spoken officer never tolerated any harm coming to his men. He was once posted on the Line of Control in the Valley when two of his soldiers were killed by Pakistani forces. He recounted how his men went across the border and killed 14 personnel on the other side.
Born in Montgomery district of Pakistan in 1940, Chandpuri was fascinated with the army from childhood. His grandfather Sant Singh was in the army while his two uncles were fighter pilots.
Chandpuri cleared the National Cadet Corps exams after graduating from Government College, Hoshiarpur, in 1962, and graduated from the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, a year later.
He soldiered on in Chandigarh even after his retirement as he would take up the issues related to ex-servicemen.
As a nominated municipal councillor from 2006 to 2011, he got a Tower of Homage built for soldiers at the Terrace Garden in Sector 33, where he was among the first to buy a plot in 1967 when the city was in its infancy.
An avid gardener, he was very fond of his chrysanthemums. A few months ago, he rued that people in the city no longer continued with the tradition of inviting ex-servicemen for tea on the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh.
But he remained as passionate about the army as he was in his childhood.
As he once told a TV channel, “If I were to be reborn, I will become a soldier again.”