Read Online The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories by Rachna Bisht Rawat - Free Book Online
Authors: Rachna Bisht Rawat
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drunken gendarmerie, who are trying to molest a Congolese woman, and soldiers of the peacekeepingforce. It has led to a shootout. Though no one is hurt, it has resulted in the nearby gendarmerie garrison creating a roadblock and, over the following days, they manage to create a lot of trouble. Fourteen UN personnel are abducted in those days of trouble. Earlier in November, Major Ajeet, also from 3/1 Gorkha Rifles—who had been tasked to force the release of two kidnapped UN officials—had been abducted by the gendarmerie along with his driver. While Ajeet never returned, the driver’s body was later found wrapped in green canvas. He had been shot at point-blank range. Ajeet had most certainly been taken hostage but all efforts to trace him were unsuccessful. He was reported missing and later declared dead.
The abduction of Ajeet is playing heavily on Salaria’s mind when he goes in for the final battle. He has been seething with fury about this cowardly kidnap of a peacekeeping officer on duty. Alpha Company is guarding the refugee camp when, around 9 a. m. on 5December, orders come for them to clear the roadblock created by the Katangese gendarmerie at Roundabout, on the route to the airport. It has to be done immediately because the block is aimed at stifling the lifeline of the UN forces that depend upon planes for not just rations, arms and ammunition, but also the evacuation of the dead and the wounded.
Sitting in his Dehradun house, retired Major General R. P. Singh, AVSM, VSM, who has written
A Star on the Mount of Jupiter
on Captain Salaria, giving the Indian brigade’s account in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Congo, talks about Salaria, his voice soft. Gen R. P. was the battalion adjutant during that operation. It was the morning of 5 December 1961, he remembers, when he spoke to Salaria on the radio set and briefed him on the plan to attack and clear the Roundabout road block. In clear, concise terms he told Salaria what his orders were. He was to take a platoon of the Alpha Company and block the gendarmerie’s withdrawal route, attacking them at midday, when they would be least expecting an attack.
Around 11. 50 a. m. Salaria reported to him that he would be moving out of the camp in 20 minutes. The two lost contact while the platoon was moving, but, an hour later, Salaria sent a message over the radio saying he was under heavy machine- gun fire, which seemed to be coming from four different directions. He said his men were engaged in a gun battle with the enemy and that they had managed to blow up two of the enemy’s armoured cars with their rocket launcher.
In his voice was a note of jubilation. This, he felt, was the moment he had been waiting for. He was very confident about what he wanted to do next. Though Maj Gen Singh remembers that he warned Salaria to assess the situation very carefully before taking any further steps, Salaria had curtly replied, ‘I am going for the attack. I am sure I will win’.
‘That was the last conversation he had with me,’ Maj Gen Singh remembers, his gravelly voice heavy with 50-year-old memories. ‘It required sheer naked courage to do what he did. Leaving his radio set and operator behind, he just charged ahead in broad daylight with his handful of Gorkhas.’
Salaria was like a man possessed. He had lost count of how many men he had killed; he’d turned into a killing machine, flinging grenades, bayoneting men and slicing through necks with his khukri. Maj Ajeet’s abduction and the murder of his driver had been on his mind for many days now. He was convinced that Ajeet had been killed and his heart shrank at just how painful his death must have been. The mercenaries were cold-blooded killers with no conscience. They needed to be taught a lesson and he was going to teach as many as he could. Here and now. For him, it was a meditative moment. He lost all fear of pain or death. As he charged at the gendarmerie, all instincts of self-preservation
The abduction of Ajeet is playing heavily on Salaria’s mind when he goes in for the final battle. He has been seething with fury about this cowardly kidnap of a peacekeeping officer on duty. Alpha Company is guarding the refugee camp when, around 9 a. m. on 5December, orders come for them to clear the roadblock created by the Katangese gendarmerie at Roundabout, on the route to the airport. It has to be done immediately because the block is aimed at stifling the lifeline of the UN forces that depend upon planes for not just rations, arms and ammunition, but also the evacuation of the dead and the wounded.
Sitting in his Dehradun house, retired Major General R. P. Singh, AVSM, VSM, who has written
A Star on the Mount of Jupiter
on Captain Salaria, giving the Indian brigade’s account in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Congo, talks about Salaria, his voice soft. Gen R. P. was the battalion adjutant during that operation. It was the morning of 5 December 1961, he remembers, when he spoke to Salaria on the radio set and briefed him on the plan to attack and clear the Roundabout road block. In clear, concise terms he told Salaria what his orders were. He was to take a platoon of the Alpha Company and block the gendarmerie’s withdrawal route, attacking them at midday, when they would be least expecting an attack.
Around 11. 50 a. m. Salaria reported to him that he would be moving out of the camp in 20 minutes. The two lost contact while the platoon was moving, but, an hour later, Salaria sent a message over the radio saying he was under heavy machine- gun fire, which seemed to be coming from four different directions. He said his men were engaged in a gun battle with the enemy and that they had managed to blow up two of the enemy’s armoured cars with their rocket launcher.
In his voice was a note of jubilation. This, he felt, was the moment he had been waiting for. He was very confident about what he wanted to do next. Though Maj Gen Singh remembers that he warned Salaria to assess the situation very carefully before taking any further steps, Salaria had curtly replied, ‘I am going for the attack. I am sure I will win’.
‘That was the last conversation he had with me,’ Maj Gen Singh remembers, his gravelly voice heavy with 50-year-old memories. ‘It required sheer naked courage to do what he did. Leaving his radio set and operator behind, he just charged ahead in broad daylight with his handful of Gorkhas.’
Salaria was like a man possessed. He had lost count of how many men he had killed; he’d turned into a killing machine, flinging grenades, bayoneting men and slicing through necks with his khukri. Maj Ajeet’s abduction and the murder of his driver had been on his mind for many days now. He was convinced that Ajeet had been killed and his heart shrank at just how painful his death must have been. The mercenaries were cold-blooded killers with no conscience. They needed to be taught a lesson and he was going to teach as many as he could. Here and now. For him, it was a meditative moment. He lost all fear of pain or death. As he charged at the gendarmerie, all instincts of self-preservation
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