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The Unknown Soldier Was Here

The Unknown Soldier Was Here

Author: Saikat Datta
Publication: Outlook
Date: October 24, 2005
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20051024&fname=CoverStory&sid=5

The Indian army's relief efforts has endeared them to Kashmiris like never before

It finally took an epic tragedy to bring together two armies divided by generations of mistrust. As the quake wreaked havoc, Indian army personnel made a quick trip into PoK, across the Aman Setu, to help their Pakistani counterparts rebuild a bunker. An official Pakistani denial, though, followed soon after. But there was considerable goodwill on the ground.

If there was a hero on the morning of October 8, it was the faceless Indian jawan. They had lost 38 men and 267 were wounded, but local commanders took charge of the situation and sent out relief columns. What made a crucial difference in relief operations was the speed with which army engineers, along with teams from the Border Roads Organisation, cleared the Baramulla-Uri road enabling relief from Srinagar to reach interior villages devastated by the quake.

Medical teams from local posts moved in while the army's aviation corps established air bridges to reach villages cut off by landslides. In a few hours, an army that had forever been criticised as an "occupation force" became the only face of relief. Twenty tons of medical supplies and 200 tonnes of rations were despatched overnight while over a thousand people were taken into the makeshift shelters the army columns had set up.

The collapsed telecommunications network was quickly replaced by the army's Signals radio sets. By the third day, over 3,000 troops were deployed in Tanghdar, Uri, Baramulla, Kupwara and Poonch while the 8 Engineer battalions was deployed to extricate the buried, set up a makeshift bridge over the Chenab as well as reopen roads. As Operation Imdad progressed, goodwill was the one thing in abundance.


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