Pilgrimage of ashes from Texas to battlefield river

CHANDIGARH: For a veteran soldier fading into the dying light, the battlefields of his youth where he gambled blood and guts for glory mean everything.


The daughter of late Brig Shashi Kant J Vasavada flew all the way from Texas (US) to the forbidding and high battlefields of India in deference to his last wishes and immersed his ashes in the Shingo river of Kargil.

This was where Vasavada had been wounded while fighting the 1971 War and his battalion, the 9 Jammu Kashmir Militia (now Light Infantry), was awarded the Battle Honour Shingo River Valley. While his ashes were immersed by his daughter, an accompanying soldier in civilian clothes saluted, and said 'Jai Hind Saab', as the black container with the ashes was emptied.