In the wind-torn ridgelines of the Batalik sector, a nameless outcrop of rock and ice transformed into one of the hardest-fought battlegrounds of the Kargil War in 1999. Khalubar was not supposed to be the stage for legends. Khalubar was brutal, remote, and unforgiving. But on those stark Himalayan heights, Indian soldiers fought through rock and fire, bunker by bunker. They left behind a trail, they left more than a reclaimed piece of land. They left behind the legend of resolve made visible in stone and steel.
The men of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles and 22 Grenadiers faced a fortress embedded into the spine of the mountains. Pakistani forces of the Northern Light Infantry had transformed Khalubar into a death trap. There were numerous stone bunkers reinforced with sandbags and steel, linked by trenches and cunningly concealed sangars that crisscrossed the ridgeline. Each post covered the next. Every approach was either mined, overlooked, or booby-trapped. It was a spider’s web laced with machine gun fire.
The Mountain That Bled Fire
Khalubar’s real challenge lay in its geographical complexity. The heights offered commanding views of Indian positions below to Pakistanis. Bunkers and observation posts defended their forward slopes that directed enemy artillery with lethal precision. The Pakistani had been stocked in these positions months in advance. They were high on ammunition, rations, radio sets, even winterised shelters. This wasn’t a temporary intrusion. It was an entrenched stronghold designed to hold through months of siege.
Each bunker was built into natural crevices and reinforced with sandbags and steel sheets, cleverly camouflaged to blend into the rock. From some vantage points, Indian observers couldn’t even tell where the mountains ended and the enemy began. Sniper nests covered every known route of approach. Heavy machine guns were mounted to cover dead zones. Mortars placed behind the ridgeline were zeroed in on Indian forward posts. Khalubar was, in short, a fortress built with foresight and cold efficiency.
The First Push
The 22 Grenadiers made the first attempt on 30 June. After a painstaking night climb guided by scouts of the Vikas Battalion, they reached the slopes below Point 5287. What followed was a baptism by fire. Enemy positions opened up with coordinated bursts of machine gun and sniper fire. Mortars fell from invisible arcs. The Grenadiers held their position but could push no further. What Khalubar demanded was not a push. It demanded a siege, led by soldiers who could fight in the dark, on ice, with knives if needed.
It would be the Gorkhas.
Manoj’s War
On 2 July, Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles was handed the task of storming the bunkers of Khalubar. He was 24 years old. He didn’t hesitate.
The Gorkhas began their climb late in the evening. They carried everything, assault rifles, grenades, rocket launchers, stretchers, radio sets, khukris, and nothing that could be spared. For seven hours they climbed. No trails, just rock and scree, under the watchful eyes of Pakistani snipers who knew the route better than their own spines. Above them lay at least 40 fortified enemy positions, each one feeding fire to the next.
Captain Pandey’s platoon split, he led the left flank; Havildar Bhim Bahadur Dewan took the right. As they approached the enemy line, a trip flare exploded. A sheet of light. A scream of bullets. The enemy knew they were coming.
The first bunker was close enough. Pandey pulled a grenade, yanked the pin with his teeth, flung it into the aperture, and charged as it exploded. Inside, there was no room for cover, only khukris and fire. Two enemy soldiers died where they stood. The platoon followed. The bunker was cleared.
The second bunker had support from higher ground. As they approached, Pandey was hit in the shoulder. He bled but didn’t pause. Another grenade. Another explosion. The team surged in again. A third position fell. Then a fourth. This time, the fire came from two directions. Pandey took another hit, his thigh this time. The captain could barely stand.
He didn’t stop.
He crawled forward. Pulled the last grenade from his belt. Flung it. The explosion drowned out the screaming in his leg. As he tried to rise, a burst of machine gun fire caught him in the head. He died instantly.
His last words were the order of a captain to his men: “Na chhodnu.” Don’t spare them.
Khukris in the Cold
The Gorkhas did not spare them. Dewan’s section on the right flank was already in motion. As the left reeled from Pandey’s loss, the right surged forward. Havildar Dewan took a bullet in the leg, but didn’t stop. His men fought their way across the bunkers in a cascade of hand-to-hand combat. Ammunition ran low. The khukris came out.
It was brutal, bloody, and intimate. Pakistani troops, caught off guard by the sheer fury of the Gorkhas’ charge, fell back in panic. Many abandoned their posts. Others were killed in close combat. The ridge was gradually being reclaimed by raw, relentless courage.
By dawn, more than 40 bunkers had been destroyed, their defenders either dead or fled. India was one step closer to winning the Kargil War. Ammunition caches, rations, documents, maps, even weather-resistant shelters, everything was left behind. The fortress had fallen.
Holding the Summit
Colonel Lalit Rai, commanding 1/11 GR, reached the summit with a torn ligament in his knee. He could barely stand but refused evacuation. He directed the men to dig in, expecting a counterattack. That attack came sooner than expected. Pakistani troops regrouped and launched an offensive to reclaim Khalubar. Rai ordered artillery fire onto his own positions to break the momentum of the enemy assault.
The gamble worked. Indian Bofors guns, dialled in with razor-sharp coordinates, scattered the attackers. The ridge remained in Indian hands. What had begun as a daring assault had turned into a determined stand. And the Gorkhas held.
Unheard Voices
Beyond the known gallantry were the lesser-known acts of grit at Kargil and more specifically in Khalubar assault too. Rifleman Ramesh Thapa braved enemy fire to ferry supplies to a forward post when radio communications broke down. Lance Naik Hari Bahadur Limbu carried wounded comrades on his back across snow and loose rock while dodging sniper fire. Some soldiers survived without food for two days, relying only on snowmelt and sheer will. The cold was merciless; frostbite was as much an enemy as gunfire.
The Indian troops had also often improvised medical support. Capt. Anupama Parasher converted a shallow ditch into a makeshift treatment point. The wounded were operated on under torchlight, sometimes using snow to numb their injuries. Ammunition had to be rationed. In more than one encounter, soldiers resorted to hand-to-hand combat after running dry.
Beyond the Medals
The stories from Khalubar in Kargil did not end with Major Pandey. Rifleman Arun Kumar Rai crawled through a machine gun arc to pull his injured comrade back. Lance Naik Ganesh Pradhan ran out of bullets and fought with a khukri. The Gorkhas did not take prisoners. They took positions.
Captain Pandey was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra. Havildar Dewan and Rifleman Rai received the Vir Chakra. But the true honour lay on that windblasted ridge, where the silence after the last grenade spoke louder than any medal ever could. Those who fought there fought because retreat was not an option.
What Khalubar Meant for the Kargil War?
Strategically, Khalubar was the hinge of the Batalik sector. Its bunkers provided cover to Muntho Dhalo and the surrounding valleys. With it gone, Pakistani supply lines collapsed. Radio intercepts caught enemy officers pleading for orders. Many troops simply abandoned their posts. Khalubar had been the lynchpin of their northern defences. Its loss marked the unravelling of Pakistan’s tactical plan in that entire zone.
For the Indian Army, the victory at Khalubar was not just a tactical achievement but a psychological turning point. It proved that even the most fortified positions could be taken if the will was strong enough. It reaffirmed faith in infantrymen. Boots on the ground, eyes fixed on the next rock face, weapons drawn, breath frozen, hearts ablaze.
Lessons and Legacies
The success at Khalubar and Kargil reshaped Indian military thinking in high-altitude warfare. The operation proved the value of night assaults, intelligence from local shepherds, and coordination between artillery and infantry in terrain where helicopters couldn’t always reach. It also exposed gaps, logistics, communication in sub-zero environments, and the urgent need for high-altitude acclimatisation protocols. These lessons influenced how India postured itself in future skirmishes along the Line of Control.
Today, the bunkers are ruins. The stones are still scorched in Kargil. The names etched on the war memorial fade slowly in the sun. But the story lives on, in the climb, in the khukri, in the moment a dying officer pointed toward the next bunker and told his men to keep going. They did. And in doing so, they etched a chapter of military history that no frost, no time, and no forgetfulness can erase.
Kargil remains a silent sentinel. Not just to victory, but to the spirit that carried men across impossible terrain and into the jaws of death, with a khukri in hand and a cry on their lips.
Jai Mahakali. Aayo Gorkhali.
