Formed from the militias of 1947-48, JAK LI became a regular regiment in the 1970s and holds the Param Vir Chakra won at Quaid Post.
Kharu Nullah, 1948
Chewang Rinchen was 17 and at school in Leh when Major Prithi Chand came looking for local men to defend Ladakh in 1948. He is reported to have been the first to sign up for the Nubra Guards. In August that year he held Kharu Nullah for 23 days with 18 untrained men. In September he marched four days to take the enemy position at Lama House, and in December he forced the enemy off a hill feature near Biagdangdo and captured two more posts after a six-day approach. As Jemadar Chewang Rinchen of 7th Battalion, the Jammu and Kashmir Militia, he received the Maha Vir Chakra, gazetted on 26 January 1952.
A Militia Becomes a Regiment
The militia began with local bodies formed to oppose the raiders of October 1947: National Home Guards in the Valley, Leh Scouts, Nubra Guards and Punch Scouts. They were grouped into platoons and companies over that winter, and on 15 April 1948 organised into 14 battalions with a headquarters at Haft Chinar in Srinagar.
The Ladakh battalions fought again in 1962. Jemadar Ishe Tundup of 7 J&K Militia received a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra. In 1963 the 7th and 14th Battalions were spun off to form the Ladakh Scouts. Rinchen went with that line of service, and as a major in 1971 he led the capture of the Chalunka complex in the Partapur sector, which earned him a bar to his Maha Vir Chakra.
After the 1965 and 1971 wars, Brigadier Lekhraj Singh Puar proposed turning the militia into a regular unit. It became a full regiment under the Ministry of Defence in 1972 and took its present name in 1976. The centre moved to Damodar Karewa, Rangreth, on the outskirts of Srinagar, in 1993. Its troops are recruited in Jammu and Kashmir, and about half are Muslim.
Quaid Post
Pakistan's Quaid Post, named after Muhammad Ali Jinnah, sat above 21,000 feet on the highest ground in the Siachen area, and fire from it reached Indian positions. The Bana Singh citation calls it "virtually an impregnable glacier fortress," with ice walls of 1,500 feet on the approach. After fire from the post killed two Indian soldiers at Sonam Post in April 1987, 8 JAK LI was given the task of removing it.
On 29 May Second Lieutenant Rajiv Pande took a 13-man patrol up the ice wall to reach the saddle. A machine gun caught them about 30 metres from the post. Ten soldiers were killed and Pande fell to his death. The operation that followed was named after him.
Major Varinder Singh's assault group assembled near Sonam Post by the night of 23 June and found Pande's ropes under the snow, with the bodies of his men. The first attempt was pinned down, and two more men were killed. On the next night a party led by Subedar Sansar Chand got within about 50 metres, but the radio batteries froze and the attack was called off.
On 26 June, in a blizzard, the group went in from two sides. Naib Subedar Bana Singh led the team that went for the bunker, with Riflemen Chuni Lal, Laxman Das, Om Raj and Kashmir Chand. When their weapons jammed, they used grenades and bayonets. Six Pakistani soldiers were bayoneted, and others went over the cliff. Three counter-attacks were beaten off. Varinder Singh, badly wounded by shrapnel, fought on and received the Vir Chakra. Bana Singh received the Param Vir Chakra, the regiment's only one, and the post became Bana Top.
Point 4812
12 JAK LI came straight off a tenure in Siachen to Batalik in 1999. It took Point 5203 on the night of 10 and 11 June. On the night of 30 June and 1 July, it attacked Point 4812.
Captain Keishing Clifford Nongrum of Shillong, aged 24, led a column up the south-eastern face, which his citation calls a "near impossible vertical feature." Fire from bunkers held the column for about two hours. He charged the first position with grenades, killing six men, and was shot trying to take a machine gun from the second. He refused evacuation and fought until he died. The feature was captured, and he received a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra. The Chief of the Army Staff gave the battalion a Unit Citation for the two actions.
Three Ashok Chakras
The regiment's Ashok Chakras have all been posthumous. Lieutenant Triveni Singh of 5 JAK LI received his for 2004. Naib Subedar Chuni Lal of 8 JAK LI, who had gone up Quaid Post with Bana Singh as a rifleman, was killed in 2007 and received it with the Sena Medal and Vir Chakra already to his name. Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani of 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army), who had twice earned the Sena Medal, received his for 2019.
At a glance
- Raised: 15 April 1948 as the Jammu and Kashmir Militia; renamed Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 1976
- Regimental centre: Rangreth, Srinagar
- Motto: Balidanam Vir Lakshanam (Sacrifice is a Characteristic of the Brave)
- War cry: Bharat Mata Ki Jai