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| Khap-Tse/ Khapse Arunachal Pradesh |
On day 2, let’s visit Arunachal Pradesh! The place where the first rays of the sun falls. Arunachal Pradesh ‘Arun’ meaning sun Pradesh means country. Also known as the’ Land of Dawn Lit Mountains’, it’s also known as ‘Land Of The Rising Sun’. Apart from these there are names like ‘Orchid State of India’ and the ‘Paradise of the Botanists’.
For those of you who have missed what the Blogging Marathon is
about then yesterday we visited Andhra Pardesh!
We are blogging about 1
state everyday this month. Today as we
visit Arunachal Pradesh. I will like to share with you today my Father-in
–Law’s experiences at Arunachal Pradesh, which he many times refers to as NEFA.
He was posted there in 1962 most of us may not remember this war as it was long
before our time. But China had attacked India and we fared badly. This is one
of him many experiences penned by him much later
Unforgettable day in NEFA
Arunachal Pradesh of today was known
as North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) during the British rule. This area is
inhabited by the locals called Mishmis there are further division of their
tribes. The area is continuous with Tibet in the north, India towards west and
south and Burma on the east. It is therefore, but natural that people from India,
Tibet and Burma also throng into NEFA, especially after the Chinese invasion of
1962.
The concept of a village is quite
different from that in other areas. It denotes a cluster of a few huts either on
top of a hill, on the slope of the mighty Himalayan ranges or in the valley
near the turbulent tributaries of the mighty Brahmaputra.
Some of the peculiarities of the area
are – cut off from the rest of the country, you have to walk for three to four
days, absence of city luxuries, rich in Flora and Fauna, almost all kinds of
birds as in the birds sanctuary, fast flowing cool waters of the rivers, simple
living in thatched huts, biting cold in the snow season, cooperative living among
Armed Personnel, Civilians and locals and among all the highest morale of the
people in the danger of another Chinese onslaught as in October 1962.
Can a person ever forget his stay in
such a locality and that too performing his job in the service of the Nation?
There are so many experiences in my stay in these parts of our country. But
a few of them are enshrined deep in our
hearts. Once such incident is narrated below---
We were posted to the forward area
close to the Chinese border. The signs of the October ’62 invasion and
subsequent Chinese threats were still fresh in the minds of the people. The
belief was that the Chinese were still in an advantageous position to invade,
occupy and run over the place anytime they decided. (Now of course we have
improved our side and would allow China or any other enemy to easily run over
us and defeat us as in ’62).
It was our job as part of the
Intelligence Bureau to collect intelligence and alert the Armed Forces in the
forward areas in case of an attack. Not an easy task as the army was 60 kms.
away and not connected by roads.
It was against this background one
winter evening when we were engaged in playing cards, when we heard the sound
of a bomb exploding! Very near us!!
Since it was dark all over (sunset is
early being Far East) as per the instructions all the men went to their
predetermined hideouts and were lying in “stand too positions”. Discussions
about the explosions in hushed voices indicated that the reason could
a) Bombing by the Chinese indicating
a sudden attack,
b) Mischief by the enemy agents to frighten
the people or
c) Accidental setting off of a bomb.
We, l the officers of the Armed
Forces like Assam Rifles, ITBP and us (The Intelligence bureau) held a hurried
conference to detect the source of the
explosion and the place and people from the invading enemy if that was the
cause. This had to be done quickly so as to assure our protective cover to the
locals who were quite afraid of the Chinese mighty onslaught. Whereas the
majority of our Armed Forces took position to effectively face the possible attack,
some of us officers decided to crawl up to different positions away from our
hideouts for a recee to pinpoint the source and cause of the explosion.
One of my junior officer and I crawled
up the hill MSP camp location. There were no lights as during “stand to” all
lights are switched off. Much to our astonishment we heard some of the MSP
jawans crying. We saw a small crowd that had gathered around 3 bodies who were
killed in the blast.
After we ascertained that the source
of the explosion was in the MSP camp and not due to the enemy, the “stand to” positions
were called off!!
All the men heaved a sigh of relief to find
that the enemy was not involved!!
Yet, our job was not over as we had to find out the cause of the
incident, it came to light that 2 jawans went out to the dropping zone in that
evening and found a curious object. They
brought it to their barracks. Thinking it will serve well as a paper weight
they tried to tinker with it with a knife and there was a big explosion killing
both of them on the spot and piercing the neck of the 3rd jawan who
was quietly sleeping in his cot. Apart
from the loss of 3 lives a large portion of the barrack was damaged.
We found a piece of HEAT shell near
the explosion site, that coupled with knowledge of the people who saw the
curious object we established that the
object that was found was Heavy Explosive Anti Tank( HEAT) shell of the Indian
Army had exploded. The shell is powerful enough to knock down a Tank and could
have easily killed more people.
While paying tributes to the 3 men we
thanked the Almighty for sparing our lives in that fateful day.
As penned by Shri. S.V. Potdar.
Retd. Official from IB
Retd. Official from IB
