He went up the heights of Batalik to look for his missing yak but what he saw and reported became the 1999 Kargil war. An urgent message by cowherd Tashi Namgyal, whose village Garkon is a few hours walk from the Line of Control, to the local Army unit was the first detection of large-scale intrusion by Pakistani soldiers.

Tashi recalls how he saw six armed intruders busy making bunkers on Indian soil in an area traditionally never manned by the Army. A lost yak, which he says was eventually eaten by the intruders, was key to the discovery.

“I had lost a yak and was out the whole day looking for it. When I reached the mountain ridge (near the village), I saw six armed men dressed in black. They were shifting stones and making some kind of shelter,” recalls Tashi (46).

He informed a local formation of 3 Punjab, based down in the valley, about the intrusion. This led to patrol parties being dispatched by the Army to the heights of Batalik.

“I was called to the local Army unit to explain what I saw. The next day, I took a small party of jawans to the spot so that they could see it for themselves. After that several patrol parties were led up to the ridge,” he says.

The village of Garkon, one of the four in Batalik that boasts of a population of Aryan descendants, was in the thick of battle. In the three months that it took to dislodge the intruders, locals served as guides and porters for troops on the move. “We carried food and ammunition for the Army. Even our women worked to get food for our soldiers,” says Tashi.

... contd.