Major Vivek Gupta – Hero Of One Of The First Major Kargil Victories
He was a proud and quintessential military man and Major Vivek Gupta, Maha Vir Chakra of the 2 Rajputana Rifles showed the kind of heroism that most of us can only imagine or perhaps see acted out in celluloid. He was the son of a military man and he married Rajshree Bisht, an Army Medical Corps officer. According to his bereaved father Lt Col B R Gupta, “He found himself where he had always wanted to be, right there where the action was”Major Vivek Gupta and Pt 4590 peak at Tuloling
(Rajshree Bisht, an Army Medical Corps officer and wife of Major Gupta paying her final respects at the funeral of her husband)
Major Gupta and his men of the 2nd Battalion, Rajputana Rifles were tasked with the recapture of point 4590 on the treacherous, icy slopes of Tololing in the Drass sector. He was part of a light machine gun commando team who was asked to recapture Pakistani bunkers along the mountain top of Tololing. As with so many of the later operations in Kargil, this too was a dangerous mission requiring an uphill accent towards entrenched enemy posts who had the advantage of height and a bird’s eye view. It was a fierce skirmish where Major Gupta and several of his fellow soldiers were mown down by enemy fire even as they managed to lay low seven of the enemy. This was among the early triumphs of the Kargil war, which set the stage for the recapturing of more key areas that the enemy had infiltrated into.
The irony was that Major ‘Vicky’ Gupta died in action on the same day that he was commissioned into the Indian Army: 13th June. He was commissioned on this day in 1992 and laid down his life, seven years later to the day.
A letter from beyond
Major Vivek Gupta Maha Vir Chakra
When the Major lost his life on the windswept, desolate mountain tops in Drass, it was two days before his body could be recovered because of constant enemy shelling. In the last letter that he penned to his family on 8th June, he said “You should feel proud of me . . . I am contributing something for the nation in this uniform I have worn . . . being a company commander at this time is the greatest experience one can have.” The letter reached his family only on 17th June, on the same day; scant minutes after the valiant soldier had been laid to rest with full military honours.
Author – Reena Daruwalla
This article is a part of a series on the brave hearts of the Kargil War – these are heroes India has either forgotten about or has never heard of. This series is our tribute to our country’s men and women in uniform ahead of Kargil Divas (26 July)