October 27—75th Infantry Day: How Pakistan’s intrusion in the Kashmir valley was foiled on this historic day!
Word For Peace
Today—on October 27— the 75th Infantry Day is being celebrated across the country especially by the Indian Army. It marks the day of the First Infantry Action by Indian Army’s Infantry of Independent India. What happened on this this day is highly crucial to know, understand and remember.
Infantry Day is observed as a remembrance of the first military event of independent India, when the Indian Army repelled the first attack on the Indian soil on October 27, 1947 in the Kashmir valley.
Every year, the Indian Army celebrates October 27 as the ‘Infantry Day’, as it was on this day that the first battalion of the Sikh Regiment landed at Srinagar airbase and displayed resoluteness and extraordinary courage and thwart the evil designs of the Pakistan Army. A Coy of 1 SIKH was airlifted to Srinagar to save Jammu & Kashmir from the Pak invaders on this historical day.
In particular, we remember India’s first war hero, Brigadier Rajinder Singh Jamwal—the Dogra warrior who defended J&K in 1947, immortalised as the ‘Saviour of Kashmir’—on this Infantry Day. He fought courageously to save Kashmir Valley from the intruders of Pakistan.
Another war hero Lt Col Dewan Ranjit Rai was the 1st officer of the Indian Army to launch into battle on October 27, 1947. He fell to bullets that very evening in a paddy field outside Baramullah, fighting hordes of tribal lashkars.
Kashmir acceded into India after an instrument of accession was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26th October 1947 and that date is celebrated as Kashmir Accession Day. Since then it is an integral part of India for Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims alike.
Pakistan has been looting resources of Baluchistan depriving the natives of development and better lives. Violation of Human Rights by state machinery on daily basis is rampant in the garb of the fight against terrorism.
Baluchistan has always been the worst victim of Pakistan Army atrocities. It has become a regular practice of Pakistan Army to kill innocent civilians, politicians, Human Rights activists including students, women and children.
The plight of minorities in Pakistan is evident from their shrinking size. Forced religious conversions have become a daily phenomenon in Pakistan. More than 1,000 girls, belonging to religious minorities, are forcibly converted in Pakistan every year
Systematic persecution of minorities, including the Ahmadiyya community, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus through draconian blasphemy laws, forced marriages and extra-judicial killings, etc. have become a widespread phenomenon in Pakistan.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare.
After independence in 1947, Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 — the last government census to classify people by religion — Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population. Forced conversions of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages have occurred throughout Pakistan.
Members of the Ahmadiyya religious community continue to be a major target for prosecutions under blasphemy laws, as well as specific anti-Ahmadi laws.
Violence against women and girls—including rape, murder, acid attacks, domestic violence, and forced marriage—remains a serious problem throughout Pakistan. Human rights defenders estimate that roughly 1,000 women are killed in so-called honour killings every year.
Child marriage remains a serious problem in Pakistan, with 21 percent of girls marrying before age 18, and 3 percent marrying before 15. Women from religious minority communities remain particularly vulnerable to forced marriage.
Pakistani law enforcement agencies were responsible for human rights violations, including detention without charge and extrajudicial killings. Pakistan failed to enact a law criminalizing torture despite Pakistan’s obligation to do so under the Convention against Torture.
In Pakistan, families of the disappeared are often threatened, harassed and intimidated, especially those whom have been more public with their protests and have campaigned openly for justice for their loved ones.
Enforced disappearances have long been a stain on Pakistan’s human rights record. Despite the pledges of successive governments to criminalize the practice, there has been slow movement on legislation while people continue to be forcibly disappeared with impunity.
The groups and individuals targeted in enforced disappearances in Pakistan include people from Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun ethnicities, the Shia community, political activists, human rights defenders.
According to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, they have 1144 cases of allegations of enforced disappearances from Pakistan between 1980 and 2019, with 731 still missing. However, these numbers barely scratch the surface: most cases never reach the UN.
According to Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), a human rights organisation, more than 6,000 people are still missing from Baluchistan. Since 2009, 1,400 people who were abducted by security forces have been found dead, their bodies riddled with bullets and drill holes, or bearing signs of torture and mutilation.
