Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 10
Lt Gen Sagat Singh, the hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak war and the man at the front to repulse a Chinese attack in 1967 in Sikkim, will be remembered on his 100th birth anniversary.
Born on July 14, 1919, Lt Gen Sagat Singh died on September 26, 2001. The Jaipur-based South Western Command has planned to commemorate the event as mark of respect to the General. Lectures are planned in schools at Chittorgarh, Bikaner, Dholpur, Jhunjhunu and Jaipur between July 8 and 13. The command will unveil an epitaph about the General. Functions will culminate on July 14 at Jaipur.
His efforts in 1967 are well recorded. A book, ‘History of the Conflict with China. 1962’, produced by the History Division of MoD and released for restricted circulation in March 1993, narrates the 1967 incident vividly. The book reads: “The Chinese troops suddenly opened machine gun fire on September 11, 1967, inflicting heavy casualties. The GOC 17 Div — the redoubtable Maj Gen Sagat Singh — blasted the Chinese positions with 5.5 medium guns. The Chinese agreed to a ceasefire on September 16. They had lost 400 men, killed or wounded, compared to Indian loss of 65 killed and 145 wounded.” In the 1971 war, Lt Gen Sagat Singh was heading the 4 Corps and led the Army’s famous heli-drop across Meghna river to pave the way for capture of Dacca (the then name of Dhaka) in East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh.
In an audacious move, nearly 2,500 men were moved across the Meghna river to the gate of Dhaka in helicopters. The city was well defended by rivers on two sides, so crossing over in helicopters was decisive. There were only five Mi-4 helicopters that carried 17 troops each, five more than their capacity. Hundreds of sorties had to be carried out despite the copters being hit by small firearms.
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