A retired Junior Engineer and currently a medicine shop owner Sushil Chakraborty, has never forgotten July 26 for past 19 years. This year too was no different, as he and his bunch of friends and neighbours, gathered Thursday morning outside his chemist shop in Rangirkhari of Silchar and paid floral tributes to the Kargil heroes on a day celebrated as Kargil Diwas throughout the country.
Chakraborty himself erected a small monument just outside his medicine shop to honour these gallant soldiers who died serving the country 19 years back. On this day, Chakraborty becomes emotional talking about them.
Speaking to Northeast Now Sushil Chakraborty said, “Today I am 74 years old. When Pakistan attacked Kashmir in 1948, I was very young. 1965 and 1971 wars, I have heard on the radio, as there was no television and there was less count of which soldier died and where, but, in 1999 when Pakistan again attacked our Kargil, what touched me the most that each of the 527 soldiers who lost their lives for our country, were brought back home and consigned to flames with full military and state honour. I felt like going to war myself”.
Chakraborty, further added, “I later came to know that in this Kargil war, two brave hearts from Cachar district of Assam also fought gallantly and became martyrs. Lance Naik Nandachand Singh is from Lakhipur and Grenadier Chinmoy Bhowmik is from Borkhola”.
Chakraborty still recollects and says that just two years back, he along with his friends visited the house of Nandachand Singh at Lakhipur and gave his one month’s pension to martyr Nandachand Singh’s family members.”
Floral tributes and slogans of ‘Vande mataram’, ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and ‘Kargil shahid amar rahe’ were heard outside Chakraborty’s medicine shop as quite a number of people gathered to mark this occasion.
A cultural programme too has been organized by friends and well wishers of Chakraborty, in the evening for rendition of patriotic songs and dances.