Kargil Vijay Diwas: Here’s all about the India-Pakistan war of 1999 and more

Kargil Vijay Diwas: On this day, the Prime Minister paid homage to the soldiers at Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate in Delhi every year.

Kargil Vijay Diwas, also known as Kargil Victory Day, is celebrated every year on July 26 to observe India's victory in the 1999 war between India and Pakistan. The day commemorates the sacrifice of Indian soldiers in the weeks-long war.

India lost over 500 soldiers in the nearly three-month-long Kargil war.  (Dipak Das/ht archive)

On this day, the Prime Minister paid homage to the soldiers at Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate in Delhi every year, and several functions are organised across the country to celebrate the Indian Army's contributions to the nation.

All about the Kargil War:

Relations between the two neighbours that had earlier engaged in a battle in 1971 leading to the creation of Bangladesh had remained tense over the past many years. While both nations were engaged in very few direct armed conflicts, they were putting in their best efforts to control the Siachen Glacier by establishing military outposts on the surrounding mountain ridges.

The tension intensified after both countries conducted nuclear tests in 1998. In an attempt to defuse the situation, the Lahore Declaration was signed in February 1999. The declaration promised to provide a peaceful and bilateral solution to the Kashmir conflict.

However, during the winter of 1998-1999, Pakistani armed forces secretly trained and sent troops to enter the Indian side of the Line of Control (LOC) and occupied fortified defences overlooking the NH 1A in Kargil's Drass and Batalik Sectors of the Ladakh region with an aim of dominating all military and civil movements.

Initially, the Indian troops assumed that the infiltrators were terrorists or ‘jihadis’ (radicals keen on war). However, soon they realised the attack was planned on a much bigger scale - forcing the Indian side to retaliate and mobilise over 200,000 Indian troops in the region.

The counter mission was called ‘Operation Vijay’.

The Pakistan army began the war by shooting two Indian fighter jets. During the course of the war, Pakistan had also sought US intervention following which the then President Bill Clinton had asked them to withdraw troops from the LoC.

A total of 527 soldiers from the Indian Army had lost their lives during the war. The war came to an end on July 26, 1999, with the Pakistan army evicting troops from their occupied positions - marking India's victory. SInce then, the day is commemorated as Kargil War Diwas to remember the supreme sacrifice of the soldiers.