'Sikhs pushed back Pakistani raiders in J-K'

New Delhi, January 6

Lauding the role of the Sikhs in the history of India, Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) referred to the airlift of the 1st Sikh Battalion from Delhi to Srinagar in October 1947 and said, “It was the Sikhs who pushed the invaders west of Uri (Kashmir)”.

He was speaking on the second day of the three-day Sikh History Congress at Khalsa College in Delhi University’s north campus.

Lt Gen Hasnain, who had commanded the Srinagar-based 15 Corps of the Army, went on to make references of former western Army Commander Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh, former Eastern Army Commander Jagjit Singh Aurora and Honorary Capt Bana Singh in the military history of independent India.

He termed Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh as a ‘great battle commander’. During the 1965 war with Pakistan, the Army Chief asked him to withdraw towards Jalandhar as the Pakistan buildup was bigger. The general refused to comply with the orders of the Army Chief and pressed forward and reached the outskirts of Lahore.

Honorary Capt Bana Singh climbed a wall of ice to reach the Pakistani post of Quaid at 23,000 feet on the Siachen glacier. In a hand-to-hand combat, the Pakistan troops were eliminated and the post is now held by India and renamed ‘Bana-post’.

Harbans Kaur Sagoo, Director, International Centre for Sikh Studies, established by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), shared insights on how the places associated with Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in Delhi were identified from Persian sources.