Gilgit-Baltistan veterans recall 1947 fighting, captivity and sacrifice

Four veterans of the 1947 fighting in Gilgit-Baltistan have described going into battle without food, clothing or weapons, and one of them says he spent a year and five months in captivity. Express News published their accounts in a video report that does not say where or when the interviews were recorded.

Sawar Ali Madad said there was no roti, no cloth and no weapons, and that the men fought the enemy and met India with the enemy's own arms. Gilgit-Baltistan did not become free easily, he said, and the freedom came at the cost of great sacrifices and martyrdoms. He said he took part in the 1947 campaign himself, and that his sons are ready to fight for the country.

Havildar Beku said the enemy attacked them and that the soldiers fought back hard, surrounded the attackers and defeated them decisively.

Lance Naik Abdul Rasheed said he and his comrades made their effort only for the freedom of the homeland, with no greed for salary or rank.

Sawar Teghoon Shah said that despite a year and five months in the captivity of what he called a cowardly enemy, and ill-treatment during it, he was still ready to fight them.

Express News billed the video as the story of Gilgit-Baltistan's war of independence, the term Pakistani accounts use for the 1947 campaign in the region. Its standfirst said the martyrs and veterans of that war showed unwavering resolve.

The report gives no date, no place and no stated occasion for the recordings, no unit designations, no locations for the actions described and no casualty figures. The four men are identified by rank and name only; the outlet does not say whether they were speaking to a reporter, to a regimental history project or at a commemorative event.

The same page on the outlet's website carried separate reports on petrol pricing, plans to cancel the housing allotments of thousands of government employees and a fatal shooting in Karachi.