Capt Saurabh Kalia's torture by Pak army still not 'war crime'

CHANDIGARH: On June 9, 1999, NK Kalia had received the body of his son – Captain Saurabh Kalia – with evidence of torture by the Pakistan Army. Eleven years later, 62-year-old Kalia is still fighting for justice – he wants the act to be declared a war crime by the UN.

However, numerous letters to the Centre have failed to move the government to pursue the matter with the world body. Five other soldiers were tortured and killed along with Capt Kalia. "I am ashamed of being an Indian. The country has spineless leaders,"said Kalia.

"In order to declare a war crime, the ministry of defence needs to write to the ministry of external affairs, which then takes up the matter with the UN Human Rights Council. The council then refers the matter to the General Assembly, which can declare war crime. It then goes to the international court of justice. It is the ministry of external affairs that did not follow up the case with the UN," says Colonel (retd) SK Aggarwal, former judge advocate general (JAG) officer.

Pakistan army had captured Captain Saurabh Kalia of 4 Jat Regiment and five other soldiers on May 15, 1999 from Kaksar area of Kargil sector.

They were kept in captivity for over 22 days and subjected to unprecedented torture as evident from their bodies. The bodies were handed over to India on June 9,1999.

Moved by the torture meted out to his son by Pakistan army, Kalia launched a struggle to declare the act a war crime. Kalia wrote series of letter to then Minister for External Affairs Jaswant Singh.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...ow/6026040.cms

kargil was not war.it was operation against insurgents.When even UPA govt. has said that kargil was bjp's war then why care?if it would ve been a war then india would ve fought cross border.kargil is just like siachin or 20 year proxy insugency.

It wasn't a war, but also we weren't fighting only insurgents but regular Pakistani Infantry, Arty and Air-force..

Kunal very few people would buy your idea. I buy it because at the end of the day, it was Indians who died, and it was Indians who captured strategic points.

If so fine if our country is left nothing more than party and politics and nothing more sure that's the only way to survive...
all i know and i felt during 1999 is dead INDIANS which were slathered coming back home to their wifes children, and the leader who call them self Indians saying its somebody else war not ours..
Gr8 democracy we have..

Comment like these make every uniform men in shame..

1st hero of kargil......



typed copy of death certificate......

Kargil was always a war though it was not a full scale war . Anyone who died in that war is a martyr Its dirty politics of UPA.
what angers us most is that some of UPA leaders are shameless enough to claim it as NDA war .
what a dirty breed of politicians we have got. They should all have been sent to kargil and we would have hailed those idiots as heros after their killing by pakistani army.

It was typical barbarity by a country that idolizes its own barbaric invaders. We can never be too careful against this enemy with no regard for humanity or morality.

Thank God I am not in the Indian Army. I would have severely damaged India and IA's reputation. For every single body sent to us in this barbaric way,I would have got inside their land and done the same to 10 of theirs.

This is how we treated pakistani POWs:










I seriously think we should kill all the pakistani POWs and terrorists after extracting all the info, these barbarian pakistanis don't deserve any mercy (their own countrymen don't show mercy to them and treat them accordingly) then why shud we treat these barbarians well. I know some members will start acting holier than thou, but fact of the matter is, if you don't respond to the invaders (from the west) in the way they treat you, certainly they will take your mercy and enlightenment as a sign of weakness and will wreck havoc (Common Sense, History, Basic Strategy......)!

I can't imagine what Lt. Saurabh Kalia and others must have gone through, this has been pakistani mercenary (dollar hungry) army's culture throughout history, I think these innocent looking POWs are as vicious as others who killed millions in East pakistan, then happily surrendered and were given 5 star treatment by our stupid govt.; to get medals from defunct organizations such as UN etc. I personally would have mutilated these pakistanis in the video, and set an example for every pakistani kid thinking of becoming a jihadi/mujahieen against India, pakistanis are not humans stop treating this Failed Beggar Terrorist Shameless State as an equal, trust me if I would have been in command I would have executed these pakistanis and sent them back home in the worst fashion possible!

P.S: I dont give damn about some self-proclaimed elite members (actually diseased by centuries of defeatist mentality) suggesting- we can't behave like them or What will be the difference between Blah Blah Blah Blah BS.

Ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome, pakistan and pakistanis have a mix of this Syndrome with Dementia and Delusion; resulting in complete schizophrenia, barbarism and state of denial, which we can observe in the case of almost every pakistani!

Funy that you mention this. I have used the same logic with some Pakistanis earlier!

only the dead have seen the end of war .

Since this topic has been broached, I think there ought to be an objective reassessment of the perspective.

First, the torture of this young soldier was a horrible, ghastly, cowardly and inhuman act by an unscrupulous enemy in a mendacious operation (where they weren't even willing to identify themselves).

Having said that I don't think all the histrionics on the Indian side are warranted based on the general standard of appreciation for human life, or rather the sheer disregard for human life in the Indian consciousness itself.

Let's start by how the Indian armed forces in the year 1999 used their precious soldiers and officers in a US civil war era line attacks against an enemy entrenched on the peaks. Let's not then forget the coffin scandal which ensued when carrying the bodies of said soldiers. It was clear that the reason for the pathetic state of affairs was on account of mass corruption and an archaic military doctrine that was centered around human attrition superiority* (so to speak). It is also worthwhile to see the level of brutality surrounding the Indian armed forces itself in conflict zones, where extrajudicial arrests, torture, killing and other forms of heavy handed violence are all commonplace. (*It is interesting to note the alarming rate of decline in officer recruitment and retention since the Kargil war due to the loss of confidence in the military establishment)

It is very, very easy to get all hyped up on select news pieces pandered by a sub standard sensationalist media, which seems to be a common Indian pass time. Unfortunately without a deep societal understanding of the core issue and the inability to put it in an appropriate context, the meaning of the tragedy gets lost in the paradoxical storm (a standard Indian phenomenon). This is why we see a citizenry get all riled up over the tragedy of this young man while remaining unable and far to apathetic to root out violence, torture and all other forms of inhuman behavior even from its own civilian society (which still sees honor killings on a regular basis).

Point being, unless there's a general upliftment of human standards in India itself and a better handling of matters by it's military, her people will never have the moral high ground to demand justice for the tragic cases like cap. Saurabh Kalia.

Lastly, Stockholm Syndrom is one where a captive becomes infatuated with and dependent upon the captor. I don't think it addresses the Pakistani situation in this case.

The Stockholm syndrome analogy is not for this case. Far too many Pakistanis consider the barbarians who perpetrated genocide, rapes and slavery on their own forefathers as heroes. They think that just by converting they have become a part of those invaders and many of them claim false invader roots.

This analogy fits them to a "T".