The story is not over yet….sounds interesting !!!!
The above two stories have been sourced from the archives available at the war museum and I thought that the story is complete.
But then, coincidentally, I met a native of Laungewala and during discussion with him, I got to know that the story as read by me in museum is not complete.
“Curious” was the status of my mind.
And I went ahead in asking and collecting more facts of this place and the famous battle.
He started narrating some more facts of the war, but his age was not matching with the data which he was providing.
So, I inquired him about the source of the information.
He along with his son, told me that his father and grandfather of his son had passed all these details and to prove his story, he took me to those hidden gems of desert.
Reaching at the real location was not easy, so we had to take an open jeep to reach this place and leave our car on highway.
After ride of ten minutes, we reached to this place and there we sat on sand in a relaxed manner and the story continued:
The sight was giving hint of the buried history. There was no official statement or information available about this location in the desert and I am of firm opinion that, only natives know of this place.
Even I can’t go alone second time to this place in desert.
The story began:
Before 1965, Indo-Pak border, the border of India was different as compared to current international boundary line.
He explained the status of international border by drawing two triangular lines on sand- A & B, same which I had drawn above in google map for better locational clarity.
The international boundary at the time of partition of India, was running in the route of “A” (dark black line), which means approximately 20 kms before the current location which is “B”. We were standing at the village Ranao, which was International boundary or Line of Control, once upon a time.
After the war of 1965, the boundary or Line of Control was re-defined or you can say that the Indian army was able to push back Pakistan or any other story which may be available. Just a guess, another theory could be that, earlier times, the bunkers and posts were far from the international border but due to continuous infringement of the international boundary laws by Pakistan, Indian army was forced to set-up defense post near to the border pillar.
The post of Laungewala was near the border, which was 15 kms before the border pillar. Since, earlier the boundary was running along the village of Ranao, hence this village has faced the heat of war both during 1965 and 1971.
He went further and explained that, the place where we were sitting and discussing the historical facts, is a military bunker used by Indian army before 1971, which has now been destroyed and not in operation.
Above facts were completely new for us.
After collecting above details, we moved to witness some more facts of this area which authenticates the story of the native guy.
We moved towards another bunker, which we could see was almost 100 mts from the current location.
So, the distance between two bunkers were as per the standard and were similar to what we had seen at Lungewala post.
He also told that, these bunkers were connected below the sand and since they are not used now, the army has closed all the communication trenches and even closed some of the bunkers by filling sand.
We went closer to the bunker to have a real feel.
Made with solid steel that even bullets cannot pierce, round in shape and sufficient space for two or more soldiers to take position. The bunker was having a number, written at the entrance gate, which he told was used to track the location of soldiers placed, at those times when there was no GPS and these bunker numbers were used to track location of soldiers placed in respective bunkers.
I could see the view of other bunkers as well from inside the bunker. So, this bunker was not lonely and there were series of bunkers at this village.
Presence of so many bunkers at one place and that too in a series was not a co-incidence but they carry important evidence of history.
To be continued…