Border Post 99: No Man's Land

Published by: Global Mind Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-9908084-0-4

March, 2011

Lieutenant Mangesh Sharma was not a happy man. He had been traveling for seventeen hours from the Indian army’s Western Command headquarters in Chandimandir, and it would be another three hours until he reached his post on the India-Pakistan border. He had gone by train to Jammu, then by convoy truck to the border town of Uri, and then in a military jeep to the base camp at Diler. He would travel the last three hours with a villager named Giridhari, who walked alongside him leading a mule laden with Sharma’s heavy duffel bags, rucksacks, tent, and blanket roll.

Lieutenant Sharma had been appointed sentry at one of the odd spots on the border. Although it was protected all around by army divisions, the tiny patch at Post 99 was left alone because it was in no man’s land.

On official army maps, Post 99 did not exist.

The India-Pakistan border runs for two thousand miles across deserts and icy mountaintops, through cotton and wheat fields and dense coniferous forests. Flags flutter in the wind over military posts, many of which are underground bunkers protected against armored tanks by water-filled trenches, barbwire fences, and manmade mounds. In some places, the enemy lines run a mile or two from each other. In others, the posts are eyeball to eyeball. Those are the last man, last round posts: fight until the last man or the last round, so the troops behind can get some lead time.

Most of the posts are unmarked and referred to by number. Each post is a brick in the wall between nuclear neighbors that were separated in 1947. In the years that followed the bloody partition, four wars and daily skirmishes caused both sides to increase their posts exponentially. There are hundreds of them now, connected and divided by barbwire fences, trenches, and mine fields. Many are in tricky terrain and can only be reached by mule and donkey.

Lieutenant Sharma was twenty-five years old. He was a freshly commissioned officer right out of the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, a town at the foothills of the Himalayas. He had no battle experience. He had never fired a gun at anything but the dummy targets in the shooting range. He did not understand the logic of stationing a fresh recruit alone at one of the most sensitive areas in the world, but his commanding officer seemed perfectly aware of the risks. According to Major Jadhav, Sharma was in no danger whatsoever.

There are a handful of spots along the border where the boundaries are not clearly defined, where each army has hesitated to claim a piece of land for political, historical, tactical or geographical reasons. There are no soldiers, no guns and no military posts on them. The most well-known stretch of no man’s land is at Wagah, the only road connecting India and Pakistan, where since 1960, thousands of spectators have gathered every evening to watch guards wearing fan-shaped headdresses speed-march and high-kick through a forty-five-minute-long retreat ceremony. But Wagah is an exception.

Tucked away in remote corners of the border are unknown pieces of land that did not make it to either side during the partition or the wars. Both sides have adhered to an unspoken, unwritten rule: absolutely no soldiers, no guns, and no posts on no man’s land.

But there are always exceptions to the rule.

Sharma knew that Post 99 should not have existed, but Major Jadhav did not much care what his superiors, the media, or politicians thought. To him, it was impractical not to watch a no man’s land. Jadhav did not place an ounce of faith in the enemy. He sent lone sentries with makeshift tents to Post 99 so everything could be wrapped up in under an hour. There was no structure, no bunker, no flag, no trench, and no barbwire fence at Post 99. A single soldier found there could be explained away as a renegade, a fugitive, MIA, or simply someone who had violated the code. Two or more would make an explanation much harder.

Jadhav assured Sharma that he was perfectly safe because high-level peace talks were under way in Delhi. At such a sensitive stage, dishonoring a no man’s land pact would be a PR nightmare for the enemy. That made Post 99 one of the safest places on the border. Besides, there were more than ten thousand troops in the area.

Sharma’s orders from Major Jadhav were to watch the front line. Don’t make too much noise, don’t make yourself too obvious, and be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. He was not to engage in any action. He had to be there as if he did not exist. Don’t mess this up were the major’s parting words.

Sharma was to rely on Giridhari to bring food and supplies from Kodi, about two miles away. Kodi was hardly a village. It was a group of four huts and six families. Normally, the locals weren’t keen to get involved with the army, but Giridhari had been a military porter in his younger days and had been doing this for several years. But even he would not come all the way to Post 99. It was his custom to drop the supplies about half a mile short of the post every five days.

There was one more advantage of using Giridhari: in case he was spotted or caught by the enemy, he would seem like an innocent villager wandering about in no man’s land.

Giridhari dropped Sharma half a mile shy of the post and Sharma walked the rest of the way with a hundred and fifty pounds of gear, ammunition, and food on his back. He was sweaty and tired when he reached the post, which turned out to be worse than he expected.

It was clear on