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Time of India
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Why Bilawal Bhutto's Masood, Hafiz extradition offer is a sham - no power, no credibility, no trust; just a desperate bluff?
NEW DELHI: NEW DELHI: Every time Pakistan offers a gesture of peace, it falls short on one crucial element. Trust. India has faced repeated betrayals at critical moments, from the 1947-48 invasion of Kashmir, the 1965 war after Operation Gibraltar, to Pakistan's role in the 1971 crackdown in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Thereafter came the sponsorship of insurgency in Kashmir since 1989, the 1999 Kargil War shortly after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Lahore visit, the 2001 Parliament attack, and the 2008 Mumbai carnage despite ongoing backchannel talks. The 2016 Pathankot airbase attack soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise stopover in Lahore. Then came the Uri attack, the 2019 Pulwama bombing, and most recently, the April 22 Pahalgam massacre. For every olive branch, India has often found a dagger concealed behind it. Security personnel at the site following the 22 April Pahalgam terrorist attack. (PTI) At the core of these repeated provocations are Pakistan-backed terror outfits such as 's (LeT) and 's (JeM). Both remain among India's most wanted terrorists for their roles in fomenting unrest and orchestrating deadly attacks. In this context, the latest remarks by Pakistan's former foreign minister Zardari have raised eyebrows. Bhutto has claimed that Islamabad is willing to extradite Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar, provided India "cooperates legally." This offer stands in sharp contrast to Bhutto's earlier posture. Just days after India put the (IWT) in abeyance, a visibly rattled Bhutto issued a combative statement: "I want to tell India that the Indus is ours and will remain ours. Either water will flow in this Indus, or their blood will." Bilawal Bhutto Threatens 'Blood Will Flow' If India Stops Water to Pakistan, Gets 'Not A Drop' Rebut So what explains this sudden pivot, from incendiary rhetoric to conciliatory overtures? Is it a genuine shift in Pakistan's policy or a desperate attempt to draw India back to the negotiating table, particularly on the Indus Waters Treaty, which New Delhi suspended following the Pahalgam terror attack? And most importantly, should India take Bhutto seriously? Pakistan, which depends on the Indus river system for nearly 90 per cent of its agriculture, views the treaty as vital to its food and water security. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now As the upper riparian state, India holds significant leverage. A reduced flow could intensify economic distress and internal unrest in Pakistan. Union home minister Amit Shah, Union jal shakti minister CR Paatil have firmly stated that the central government has developed a comprehensive strategy to halt Indian river water from flowing into Pakistan. Dismissing Pakistan's loud objections over the IWT, PM Modi also made it clear that "the waters rightfully belonging to India will now serve Indian interests alone". Significance of IWT Seen in this light, Bhutto's statement appears to be a strategic move, deliberately ambiguous and easily retractable if no progress occurs. "Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has no locus standi. He is not in the cabinet, he is not part of the armed forces. Yes, his father is the president of Pakistan (Asif Ali Zardari), and that's about all. So, the Pakistani army uses people like Bilwal Bhutto to make comments which can then be retracted tomorrow," Major Gaurav Arya (Retd) told TOI. He further said: "Because the Indus Waters Treaty has been held in abeyance by India, they want to give out an olive branch to India as a token of peace or a white flag. But tomorrow, if public backlash is a little too that point in time, Pakistan can say Bilawal is not part of the government." However, acknowledging that Bilawal's statement is not entirely without significance, Major Arya said, "India should just absorb Bilawal's remark and just wait for the official statements". "If the Pakistani ministry of external affairs makes a point, then India's MEA will make a counterpoint," he added. Shehbaz Sharif Announces New Dam Projects- Will Indus Water Dispute Intensify? | Watch Ultimately, Bhutto's extradition overture appears less a policy shift and more a calculated distraction -- a diplomatic decoy aimed at reclaiming control over a narrative slipping from Islamabad's hands. With the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and India showing no signs of relenting, Pakistan finds itself cornered. An offer to hand over long-sheltered terrorists may sound conciliatory, but it lacks institutional weight and credibility -- especially when made by someone with no executive authority. India, hardened by decades of Islamabad's duplicity, is unlikely to be swayed by rhetoric alone. Without transparency, accountability, and an unequivocal crackdown on terror infrastructure, New Delhi has little reason to re-engage.
NDTV
24-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Between Operations Gibraltar And Sindoor, A Missed Industrial Revolution
There are times when a peek back into history offers unique insights into what is happening today. In these politically and ideologically polarised times, keyboard warriors continue to engage in social media warfare even as serious analysts examine the implications of Operation Sindoor. The authors are least interested in that kind of discourse. They would rather examine the real implications of Operation Sindoor by tracing the trajectory taken by India since Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar to capture Jammu & Kashmir in 1965. Perhaps two of the most spectacular achievements of India in the preceding sixty years are the Green and White Revolutions. All serious analysts or scholars agree that there is no comparison really between India and Pakistan, except the fact that the latter has a habit of invoking nuclear blackmail. But India was significantly weaker and vulnerable in 1965. The fact is: even as the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, grappled with war against Pakistan, he had to contend with a looming famine and mass starvation simultaneously. Narendra Modi faces no such challenges. The authors think that irrespective of political parties and despite the persistence of bitterness in public discourse, the journey of India between 1965 and 2025 has been remarkable, a testament to the vision of leaders, technocrats and scientists. Two politicians, one technocrat and one scientist, stand out as eternal heroes of India: Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then agriculture minister C Subramaniam, agriculture scientists Dr MS Swaminathan, and technocrat Varghese Kurien. Even as war loomed and then raged with Pakistan in 1965, Shastri took some key decisions that transformed India forever. The first was to give a free hand to his agriculture minister Subramaniam, to experiment aggressively with high-yield seeds, irrigation and the use of fertilisers. The actual implementation was left to a scientist called Norman Borlaug and the Indian genius Swaminathan. Of course, it was the Indian farmer - beginning with Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh - who made the Green Revolution a reality. At the same time, Shastri had a quiet meeting with a 'manager' named Varghese Kurien in an obscure village in Gujarat. Kurien agreed to head the National Dairy Development Board, and the rest is history. Just look at some numbers to see how far India has travelled over the last sixty years. The population then was close to 500 million and is about 1,450 million now. The total foodgrain production back then was 89 million tonnes (it actually declined to about 75 million tonnes the next year, leading to a near famine), and it is 350 million tonnes in 2024-25. Back then, the total wheat output was 12.3 million tonnes. In 2024-25, it is estimated at about 120 million tonnes. The total milk output back then was 17 million tons. In 2024-25, it touched 240 million tonnes. While accurate data for 1964/65 is not available, total horticulture output was estimated at about 30 million tonnes. In 2024-25, it is 365 million tonnes. The total eggs produced in India back then were 55 billion, while in 2024-25, it was 143 billion. There are not many Indians today who can personally recall the humiliation India was subjected to in that era. India was hopelessly dependent on food aid from countries like the United States and Canada, whose leaders often took delight in humiliating India even as they reluctantly sent food grains. And still, about 2 lakh Indians died of starvation between 1965 and 1967. Today, while the population has exploded and touched three times those levels, almost on every possible food and consumption item, our production has gone up by five or ten times, if not more. India is one of the leading exporters of food grains, fruits and vegetables. Imagine the predicament for Narendra Modi if India had to grapple with severe food scarcity and insecurity, as it did in 1965. The per capita availability of food grains and horticulture in India is more than 250 kilograms a year, or more than 20 kilograms every month. On top of that, the government provides five kilograms of free food to 800 million Indians every month. In Pakistan, citizens struggle for food now just as ordinary Indians struggled in the era of Operation Gibraltar. But as the CVoter tracker during the conflict shows, a majority of Indians are very clear that our problem is not Pakistan, but the force behind Pakistan, that is, China. We can leave Pakistan at the moment, as it is hardly a competition on socio-economic scales. It's a failed state, and all we need to do is get a deterrent from any terror attacks coming out of that failed state. In normal times, we would have even wished Pakistan well for its own peaceful existence with a growing economy. But right now, we don't even bother with that. Our main issue in every possible sphere is with China. The security aspect remains where it was after the 1962 humiliation, but it is the economic scale that should bother us more. And that debate starts and ends in the manufacturing sector. While critical analysis of Operation Sindoor continues, one significant conclusion can be safely drawn: a very big role was played by systems and equipment manufactured within India. The BrahMos and Akash missiles and many other varieties of drones that were deployed in the conflict were manufactured almost entirely in India. Yet, the conflict also revealed the one big failure of India as a nation in the sixty years since Operation Gibraltar. It has repeatedly missed the industrial and manufacturing bus while its Asian peers have surged ahead. Despite the historic economic reforms of 1991 that transformed India and enabled it to reduce poverty, India has come a cropper when it comes to manufacturing at a global scale. Thanks to mobile phone handsets, India is considered a success story at least in domestic manufacturing in electronics. Exports in 2024 were estimated to be around $30 billion. Tiny Vietnam, in contrast, recorded electronics exports of $150 billion the same year. This is not to say that the industrial and manufacturing sector in India is primitive. It is huge and throbbing with productivity and global competitiveness in some sectors. After all, 16% of a $4 trillion economy works out to more than $600 billion, almost double the entire GDP of Pakistan. Yet, it remains the biggest failure of economic policymaking. China, too, had a primitive manufacturing base in 1965. But today, manufacturing contributes 30% of the GDP, ensuring China has emerged as the 'factory' of the world. According to the latest trade data available, India has run a trade deficit of almost $100 billion with China, which is half the total trade deficit. The deficit on its own is a serious issue. What is worse is India's dependence on China in critical sectors like electronics, telecom equipment, pharmaceutical intermediates and heavy machinery. Operation Sindoor revealed how China has been using Pakistan as a proxy and client state to contain and disrupt India. Imagine a scenario in which a conflict results in China cutting off supplies of critical equipment. So yes, as one reflects on the journey between Operation Gibraltar and Operation Sindoor, it is worthwhile celebrating success stories like the Green and White Revolutions. But it is also a wake-up call. Unless Indian manufacturing takes giant strides in the coming decade, it will never be a serious global power.
Time of India
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Deniability is part of Pakistan's strategy of asymmetric warfare: Former diplomat Dinkar Srivastava
Former diplomat Dinkar Srivastava has said that deniability is part of Pakistan's strategy of asymmetric warfare, examples of which lie with its each act of aggression, starting from its "tribal raid" of Kashmir in 1947, Operation Gibraltar in 1965, Kargil war in 1999, Mumbai terror attack in 2009, and the recent attack in Pahalgam. Srivastava, who has served in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and was posted to Pakistan, the United States, and the European Union, said that Pakistan's involvement was subsequently established in these acts of aggression. "Pakistan initially denied in the UN Security Council that its forces were involved (in tribal raids of 1947). In May 1948, Pakistan's foreign minister Sir Zafarullah Khan admitted to the UN Commission on India and Pakistan that two brigades of Pakistani army were fighting in Kashmir, which had acceded to India," the former Indian ambassador to Iran told PTI in an email interaction. 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Electric Cars | Search Ads Undo Srivastava, in his latest book, "Pakistan: Ideologies, Strategies and Interests", traces Pakistan's evolution and drift to an uncertain future through the lens of the partition, Two-Nation theory, the dynamics between its leaders and the army, its many internal conflicts, and the diplomatic relations with India. Talking about Pakistan's "strategy of asymmetric warfare", he added that it will sponsor terrorism as long as it feels the idea is working. However, India's firm response in the form of Operation Sindoor post-Pahalgam terror attack has sent a clear warning to "terrorists and their masters". Live Events "Deniability is part of Pakistan's strategy of asymmetric warfare. They will continue to sponsor terrorism if they feel that this idea is working. Operation Sindoor - firm response by India, has conveyed the message to terrorists, and their masters in the Army and the ISI that such adventures will result in costs to them," he said. In a terror attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, Kashmir, as many as 26 people, mostly tourists, lost their lives. India retaliated with Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir on the intervening night of May 6 and 7. This act of terror, Srivastava said, is partly linked to Pakistan's internal situation. "With mounting internal troubles, the Pakistani Army needs to divert focus to India. The country witnessed food riots in 2022, its economy has been on the verge of default, the Army's legacy is being challenged in Punjab, which has been the main source of recruitment since the British days. There is an insurgency in Balochistan. A terror attack in J&K helps divert attention," he said. As the situation between the two neighbouring countries got intense in the first part of May, the threat of a nuclear war also loomed large. However, the Indian military response also called off "Pakistan's nuclear bluff", on which it has relied in the past. "...Pakistan threatened in the past escalation to the nuclear level in case of Indian response to acts of terrorism. This was aptly described by Prof. C. Christine Meyer as 'Jehad under nuclear umbrella'. The Indian military strike against terrorist training camps in PoK and Jaish and Lashkar headquarters in Bahawalpur and Muridke showed that India will retaliate in all such cases. This is the new normal," he added. As director of the UN Political Division in the MEA, Srivastava was part of India's lobbying efforts to prevent internationalisation of the Jammu and Kashmir issue in 1999. In 1993-94, he was part of Indian lobbying efforts against four Pakistani attempts to have resolutions on J&K adopted in the UN General Assembly and UN Commission on Human Rights. The book, published by Bloomsbury, is priced at Rs 799 and is available on online and offline stores.
India Gazette
27-05-2025
- Politics
- India Gazette
"Most hilarious aspect...state of denial": BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad takes dig at Pakistan Asim Munir's promotion to Field Marshal
Paris [France], May 27 (ANI): BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is leading all-party delegation, to France on Tuesday took a dig at Pakistan for promoting Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir to Field Marshal despite recent military and strategic failures during Operation Sindoor by India in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. He said, 'The most hilarious aspect was that the general whose forces were defeated at the hands of India decisively was promoted to Field Marsh. This is state of denial.' Despite the military setbacks, Pakistan's government is projecting the outcome as a 'historic victory,' praising General Munir's leadership during the conflict. General Asim Munir became only the second army officer in Pakistan's history to be elevated to Field Marshal. Ayub Khan, Pakistan's president from 1958 to 1969, holds the distinction of being the country's first Field Marshal. Notably, his promotion to this highest military rank was self-appointed, following his coup and assumption of the presidency in 1958. Munir's elevation also signals who truly calls the shots in Pakistan. The government approved a promotion that further cements the army chief's dominance over the country's civilian leadership. Notably, has been in state of denial regarding its role in perpetuating violence and instability in the region, hindering efforts to achieve lasting peace. Four wars has been fought between the two countries - The first war between India and Pakistan occurred shortly after independence, primarily over the disputed region of Kashmir in 1947-48; 1965 war, sparked by Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which aimed to infiltrate and capture Kashmir; 1971 war, a decisive conflict that led to the creation of Bangladesh and 1999 Kargil war, Pakistani troops infiltrated into Kashmir, sparking a military confrontation. Despite these historical conflicts and ongoing tensions, Pakistan has consistently denied its role in supporting terrorist groups and engaging in aggressive actions against India. This denial extends to its refusal to acknowledge the impact of its actions on regional stability and the suffering of innocent civilians. Meanwhile, briefing French journalists, Prasad noted that Members of Parliament have come to France not in happier times but to convey a straight message. He called out Pakaistan for their support to terrorists. He said, 'We have not come to Paris and meeting you in happier times. But we have to we have come to convey some straight message. Terrorism is not India centric, terrorism is now a global phenomenena. In the majority of the cases, terrorists, their patrons, and the groups, terror groups based in Pakistan have direct or indirect involvement. Today, there are 52 designated terrorists by UN.' 'The distinction between the state of Pakistan and terrorism has withered away. Terrorism as an instrument of state policy is a part of the military state of Pakistan. You know that no democracy there,' he added. He also spoke about wars between India and Pakistan and emphasised that none of the four were started by India. The delegation leader noted that all major world powers supported India's stance, and India has conveyed clearly that any actions will be handled bilaterally, with the Director General of Military Operation (DGMO) of Pakistan engaging directly with the DGMO of India. He said, 'India and Pakistan has four clear wars, 1948, 1965, 1971 where Bangladesh was created And Kargil war. None of these were started by India. I repeat, none of these were started by the government of India have ... Pakistan and PM Modi also invited Nawaz Sharif in his swearing-in ceremony in 2014. He also went to Pakistan at his instance to attend the marriage of his grandson. And thereafter this has continued unabated. This time, India has conveyed in very clear terms this far and. and no further.' 'A new norm has been set. We had attacked only the terrorist infrastructure... We conveyed to Pakistan that we did not want to escalate. We only wanted to attack terror infrastructure... On the morning of May 10, their DGMO talked to our DGMO... Our message was clear, you stop, we stop... Any act of terrorism will be constituted as an act of war,' he added. On the Indus Water Treaty, Prasad stated it remains in abeyance until Pakistan provides evidence of stopping terrorism. Member of the delegation, Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, said, 'We are also looking at your European Union, also looking at other important nations to address the terrorism emanating out of Pakistan, because we are all equal sufferers, we in India are more so, because we share the neighbourhood with them. We can't change our neighbours. We can only hold them accountable.' The delegation, led by Ravi Shankar Prasad, includes BJP MPs Daggubati Purandeswari, MJ Akbar, Ghulam Ali Khatana and Samik Bhattacharya; Congress MP Amar Singh, Priyanka Chaturvedi from Shiv Sena (UBT) and former diplomat Pankaj Saran. In a post on X, Indian Embassy in France stated, 'Meeting with Media over breakfast The All Party Indian Parliamentary Delegation met with French and international media in Paris over a candid conversation about India's fight against terrorism.' Operation Sindoor was launched on May 7 as a decisive military response to the Pahalgam attack by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, in which 26 people were killed. Indian armed forces targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in the deaths of over 100 terrorists affiliated with groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Hizbul Mujahideen. The Indian Armed Forces responded effectively to subsequent Pakistani aggression and pounded its airbases. The two countries agreed to a cessation of hostilities on May 10. (ANI)
India Today
16-05-2025
- Politics
- India Today
India's war hero who created a graveyard of Pak's Patton tanks with a gun
"That's a bad omen... Don't go today," said Rasoolan Bibi as she saw the rope around the holdall bag of her husband, Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid, snap. It was 1965 and Hamid was rushing to join his battalion, the 4th Grenadiers, as war clouds hovered over the Indian subcontinent."Didn't I return safe from the 1962 war?" Hamid replied. With this assurance to his wife, Hamid left his home in UP's Dhamupur village in Ghazipur ominous feelings that his wife had would prove prophetic. But not before generations in India got a hero to look up extraordinary bravery in the Battle of Asal Uttar, (meaning the real reply), Abdul Hamid would etch his name as one of India's bravest the battle, Hamid stood atop his jeep, manoeuvring through the sugarcane fields of Punjab with a recoilless (RCL) gun, and single-handedly took down at least half a dozen American-made Pakistani Patton tanks. The 1965 Indo-Pak War saw the largest tank battle since World War II (1939–1945).In recognition of Hamid's valour and supreme sacrifice in service to the nation, he was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest gallantry was Pakistan that thrust upon India the 1965 War with Operation Gibraltar, its second failed bid to seize Kashmir through infiltration, after the first in 1947. The third came in 1999 at Kargil. Thwarted each time, Pakistan has turned to terrorism as a prolonged proxy war against April 22 Pahalgam attack, where terrorists of The Resistance Front, Pakistan's new proxy outfit of old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), brutally gunned down 26 people, was another horrific face of the proxy war. What followed was India's retaliatory strike -- Operation Sindoor -- which destroyed nine terror hubs across Pakistan and Pakistan-cooupied Kashmir (POK). Over 100 terrorists were eliminated, including those linked to the 1999 IC-814 hijacking and the 2019 Pulwama attack. Pakistan responded by deploying heavy artillery and armoured units near the border. Alongside cross-border drone, artillery, and mortar strikes, it targeted military and civilian areas along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International tried to hit Indian military and civilian areas but India not only foiled but caused damage to Pakistani military infrastructure in its retaliatory strikes. Indian forces proved their superior capabilities, just like they had done in the 1965 War, in which Abdul Hamid emerged as a national hero. A postage stamp issued in 2000 commemorated Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid, a Param Vir Chakra awardee, for his role in the 1965 War, marking 50 years of the Republic of India. (Image: India Post) PAK'S OP GIBRALTAR, KASHMIR INFILTRATION WAS A CALCULATED MOVE AMID LEADERSHIP CHANGE IN DELHIThe 1965 Indo-Pak War was triggered by Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, named after Gibraltar, from where the early Muslim conquest of Europe's Iberian Peninsula was launched. In August 1965, Pakistani troops from the so-called Azad Kashmir Regular Force, disguised as mujahideen, infiltrated Jammu and Kashmir to incite unrest and spark an armed uprising among the Valley's Muslim-majority in the 1960s, after signing a 1954 defence pact, Pakistan secured $1.5 billion in military aid from its ally, the United States. Pakistan acquired a bunch of American military hardware, including Patton tanks, F-86 Sabre jets, M24 Chaffee light tanks, and M48 tanks."India had suffered a severe reversal in the Sino-Indian War of 1962, her economy had suffered substantially, reorganisation of her forces was incomplete, arms-aid after the war with China [in 1962] was only for the mountains and that too had yet to be absorbed... Her [Pakistan's] own economy was sound due to agricultural production and industrial growth," Major General Ian Cardozo (retired) wrote in 'Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle'. Major General Cardozo is India's first war-disabled army officer to command a battalion and a [Jawaharlal] Nehru had died [in 1964] and his replacement, the diminutive Lal Bahadur Shastri, did not seem to impress the Pakistanis. Pakistan felt that the opportunity was too good to be wasted and needed to be taken advantage of," Major General Ian Cardozo (retired) added. Pakistan was a key ally of the US in the region, playing the role in containing communism and supporting anti-Soviet policies. (Image: Generative AI by Sushim Mukul) Then a member of SEATO and CENTO, Pakistan, armed and bolstered, launched its offensive aiming to capture Indian territory, especially in launching Operation Gibraltar to annex Jammu and Kashmir, General Ayub Khan-led Pakistan tested India by initiating a limited offensive in the Rann of Kutch desert between April and June 1965, according to Major General Ian Cardozo (retired).To push India further back, Pakistan deployed mujahideen and regular troops from across the LoC into Gulmarg, Uri, and Baramulla. Major General Afsir Karim (retired) estimated the force at 30, ROAD TO ASAL UTTAR. HOW AND WHY PAKISTAN ATTACKED INDIA IN 1965After Pakistan's multi-front troop movements, Indian forces fought back in Jammu and Kashmir and the Rann of situation escalated into the confrontation at Asal Uttar (in Punjab's Tarn Taran district), north of Khemkaran, where Pakistani forces advanced after Indian multi-unit troops moved toward Kasur, in Pakistan. The clash was one of the largest post-World War II tank battles, with the last of similar scale being the 1943 Battle of Kursk between Nazi Panzers and Soviet 8 September, hours after Indian units, including Hamid's Grenadiers, took position amid thick sugarcane fields, the rumble of numerous enemy tanks was heard."The fields are rustling with sugar cane and even as Hamid sits in the passenger seat of his jeep, which has mounted on it a recoilless (RCL) gun, he can hear the wind. The jeep trundles over a narrow mud track ahead of Cheema village... Taking cover behind the tall crop, Hamid points his gun in their direction and then waits. The Grenadiers hold their fire so as not to warn the enemy," journalist and author, Rachna Bisht Rawat wrote in her book, The Brave: Param Vir Chakra as the tanks come within 30 yards, Hamid asks his loader to load the gun and shoot. He watches the shell go up and arch towards the first enemy tank. Even as he picks up his binoculars, he hears the blast. The tank is burning in front of his eyes. Hamid and his men rejoice. 'Shabaash!', he mouths, and they exchange wide smiles," Rawat tasted blood with his first tank kill. There was no stopping him later when the second tank attack began, Abdul Hamid knocked out his second Patton, forcing the crews of two follow-up tanks to abandon and flee. By the end of the day, two tanks were destroyed and four were next day, on September 9, Pakistani Sabre jets and armoured divisions launched a fierce assault on Indian troops who had just the RCL into enemy fire, Abdul Hamid took out two more a confirmed tally of four tanks destroyed, Abdul Hamid's citation for the Param Vir Chakra was sent. That's why the Param Vir Chakra credits Hamid with just destroying four more tanks would meet the same fate at Hamid's hands. Asal Uttar, located near Tarn Taran in Punjab, was a crucial battlefield in the 1965 War where Indian forces decisively halted Pakistan's armoured advance. HOW PARAM VIR ABDUL HAMID CREATED PATTON GRAVEYARDOn Day 3 — September 10 — as Indian battalion defences came under intense shelling and Pakistani Patton tanks advanced, Abdul Hamid destroyed another tank and swiftly repositioned his RCL gun. Hours later, as enemy tanks pushed forward again with heavier artillery support, Hamid took out his sixth tank with deadly Bisht Rawat, however, credits Hamid with destroying three, not two, tanks on the third day, citing a person named Jameel, who heard the account first-hand from a surviving soldier of the battle."The next tank and Abdul Hamid spotted each other simultaneously. Being alone, he could not change his position, so he reloaded his weapon and traversed it. The Pakistani tank gunner and Abdul Hamid placed each other in the cross-hairs of their sights together and fired nearly simultaneously. Abdul Hamid was killed instantly. It is not clear whether the enemy tank was also destroyed. The battalion history, however, states that both fired simultaneously and blew each other to bits," wrote Major General Ian Cardozo (retired) in his book. Then-Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in 2015 unveiled a memorial to commemorate Param Veer Chakra Havildar Abdul Hami's legacy, in Ghazipur, UP. (Image: PTI) For his unmatched valour, Abdul Hamid was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest wartime gallantry award. While the Param Vir Chakra citation says Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid destroyed four Pakistani Patton tanks. Other sources say as many as eight to nine tanks were taken down by Hamid single-handedly. Some sources even put the Pakistani tanks destroyed by him at destruction of Patton tanks broke the momentum of Pakistan's armoured thrust in the Khem Karan sector. Holding the line with just a recoilless rifle, he paved the way for India's 4th Mountain Division to trap and decimate Pakistan's 1st Armoured Division in what came to be known as the "Patton Graveyard"."As many as 75 Pakistani Patton tanks were destroyed or deserted, and the Indians collected these as war trophies. In fact, the place where they lay deserted was named Patton Nagar by the locals and was a symbol of Pakistan's humiliating defeat," wrote Major General Ian Cardozo (retired) in his book. After the 1965 War ceasefire, a unique tank graveyard called 'Patton Nagar' emerged at Bhikkiwind, Punjab, showcasing the destroyed American-made Patton tanks of the Pakistani Army. (Image Ministry of Defence) The Patton tanks failed in the 1965 War because their ammunition was stored in the turret and hull. They were vulnerable to high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds. Hit by Indian soldiers, the tanks blew up in catastrophic explosions. The swampy sugarcane fields crippled them decisive Indian resistance at battles like Asal Uttar, the war reached a stalemate, prompting both sides to accept a United Nations-mandated ceasefire on 23 September. The Tashkent Agreement, brokered by the Soviet Union and signed in January 1966, formalised the end of hostilities, with both India and Pakistan agreeing to withdraw to pre-war Pakistan has hardly mended its ways, still flirting with provocation, still betting on steel and strategy over sense. Amid the new clouds of conflict, Abdul Hamid's story speaks of the steely resolve of its soldiers. It's a reminder that wars aren't necessarily won by swaggering machines alone, but by the sheer grit of men who refuse to back down, even when the odds are stacked up against as Major General Ian Cardozo (retired) noted, "Abdul Hamid was the right man, at the right place, at the right time".If Pakistan had Pattons, India had a Param Vir at the right place at the right time. Hamid didn't just earn the Param Vir Chakra, he defined it to a great InTrending Reel
