# Kargil War Was Fought on Two Fronts at Once, Reveals What Happened Inside Army Headquarters in Delhi

> During the Kargil war, Indian troops were not just battling intruders on snowbound peaks, a separate struggle was underway at the army headquarters in Delhi to grasp the true scale of the infiltration. Former army chief General Ved Prakash Malik has detailed this twin battle, including a single photograph that exposed the Pakistan Army's role.

**Type:** article · **Category:** Delhi · **Published:** 2026-07-22 · **Source:** TrendKia
**Canonical:** https://trendkia.com/en/delhi/kargil-men-eka-satha-do-morchon-para-lari-gai-thi-jnga-purva-army-chief-ne-bataya-delhi-mukhyalaya-ka-pura-kissa-9620 · **Language:** English
**Tags:** Kargil War, Ved Prakash Malik, Indian Army, Pakistan Army, Batalik Sector, Dras Sector, LoC infiltration

More than 27 years have passed since the Kargil war began, yet several aspects of that conflict remain largely unknown to the public. One such aspect is that while Indian troops were locked in combat with intruders perched on icy peaks, an entirely separate struggle was playing out at the army headquarters in Delhi to make sense of the situation. Former army chief General Ved Prakash Malik has laid out this twin struggle with unusual candour.

## Fighting on the ground, deliberation at headquarters
According to General Ved Prakash Malik, the real battle in Kargil unfolded on two levels at once. On one side, soldiers were pushing back intruders entrenched on the high peaks, while on the other, officers at the Delhi headquarters were trying to work out just how deep the infiltration ran and what its true purpose was. That is why activity intensified simultaneously in the field and at headquarters during the early weeks.

## A lesson Malik had learned early in his career
General Malik notes that the first assessment of any event is rarely balanced. It is either blown out of proportion or painted far too bleakly. He says he learned this lesson early in his professional career, and that an accurate read of any situation is only possible once a commander goes to the ground and observes it personally. The same principle applied in Kargil, where early confusion had to be repeatedly cleared up by checking facts on the ground.

## The 21 May meeting that revealed the full picture
An important Chiefs of Staff Committee, or COSC, meeting was held in the operations room at Army Headquarters on 21 May. It was at this meeting that officers first got a complete and clear picture of the infiltration in Kargil. Before that, reports trickling in from different sectors had remained scattered, but this meeting pulled the threads together and revealed the true scale of the crisis.

## The clash spread from Batalik across the whole brigade area
The fighting began as a smaller skirmish with intruders in the Batalik sector, but it soon grew into something much larger. The clash spread across all the battalion-defended areas under the 121 (I) Infantry Brigade. As a result, Indian patrol parties in areas once considered quiet suddenly found themselves running into intruders.

## The threat looming over the highway and supply lines
Around this time, the army also began to realise that the number of intruders exceeded a thousand. These armed infiltrators were not alone, they had mortar and artillery support behind them. Their focus was not limited to the national highway, they also began choking off the supply routes leading to Indian posts along the LoC, making it harder to move rations and equipment to the troops.

## An infiltration so silent that no post noticed it
The most startling part of the entire episode was just how covertly the infiltration had been carried out. Personnel at none of the posts or checkpoints along the LoC noticed the intruders slipping in. No post came under direct attack, and no major encounter was recorded nearby either. That meant the intruders had managed to push in deep without a single direct clash, a fact that later stunned the entire army.

## New battalions rushed in the moment the threat was clear
As the true seriousness of the threat became apparent, the army moved quickly to send in reinforcements. Two battalions from the 3 Infantry Division, the 1/11 Gorkha Rifles and the 12 JAK Light Infantry, were despatched to the affected areas. Both were placed under the 70 Infantry Brigade Headquarters, which already held responsibility for securing the Batalik sector.

## Sikh and Naga battalions move into the Dras sector
Given the rapidly changing situation in Kargil, two more battalions, the 1 Naga and 8 Sikh, were sent from the Kashmir valley to the Dras sector. Command of these units was handed to the 56 Mountain Brigade Headquarters, which took charge of the entire sector. Some units of the Rashtriya Rifles were also sent to Dras and Kargil to further strengthen the army's position.

## How suspicion of Pakistan Army involvement deepened
By that point, opinion within the army had largely settled on the belief that the Pakistan Army had a direct hand in the infiltration, though no conclusive evidence had yet surfaced. The intruders had dressed in ordinary clothing resembling that of Mujahideen fighters to conceal their true identity. Even so, their methods, the tactics used, their handling of weapons and their style of fighting all pointed clearly to trained soldiers rather than ordinary militants.

## Weapons and attack patterns gave the game away
Initially it was believed the army was facing only jihadi intruders, but that assumption changed gradually. These intruders were carrying modern weaponry of the kind typically issued to a regular infantry battalion. They were also striking with remarkable precision using artillery and mortars on routes used by Indian troops and their supply lines. That precision only deepened the suspicion that this was no ordinary terrorist attack.

## Where intelligence inputs and ground reality did not match
Throughout the infiltration, Pakistani artillery kept up sustained shelling. At the same time, intercepts from Pakistan's radio network and early reports from Indian intelligence agencies suggested the intruders were Pakistani jihadi terrorists. Yet on the ground, their conduct and style of combat told a different story altogether, one that clearly pointed to trained soldiers rather than terrorists.

## The 17 May photograph that changed the course of the probe
On 17 May, the Aviation Research Centre in New Delhi obtained a crucial aerial photograph, which was handed over to Army Headquarters on 19 May. The image captured a Pakistan Army helicopter crossing the LoC and flying towards Indian territory. That single photograph supplied the missing link the army had been searching for for weeks, making it clear that the intruders holed up on the peaks were receiving direct support from the Pakistan Army.

## A shortage of satellite images proved a major hurdle
Apart from this aerial photograph obtained by the Aviation Research Centre on 17 May, no other aerial or satellite imagery was available to the army at the time. That is precisely why it became extremely difficult to pin down exactly where the intruders were positioned, their real numbers, and the extent of the territory they had occupied. With information so limited, the army's overall picture of the situation stayed unclear for a long stretch.

## Questions & Answers

### 1. Who has revealed this account, and when did the war take place?
The account has been detailed by former army chief General Ved Prakash Malik, who was the army chief at the time of the Kargil war, which took place more than 27 years ago.

### 2. Why was the 21 May meeting significant?
The Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting held in the operations room at Army Headquarters on 21 May was where officers first got a complete and clear picture of the infiltration.

### 3. How did the fighting in the Batalik sector begin?
It started as a skirmish with intruders in the Batalik sector and quickly spread across all the battalion-defended areas of the 121 (I) Infantry Brigade.

### 4. How many intruders were estimated to be involved?
The intruders were estimated to number more than a thousand, and they had mortar and artillery support.

### 5. Which battalions were sent in first?
The 1/11 Gorkha Rifles and 12 JAK Light Infantry from the 3 Infantry Division were sent, placed under the 70 Infantry Brigade Headquarters.

### 6. Which battalions were deployed to the Dras sector?
The 1 Naga and 8 Sikh battalions were sent from the Kashmir valley to the Dras sector, under the command of the 56 Mountain Brigade Headquarters.

### 7. What evidence emerged of Pakistan Army involvement?
An aerial photograph taken by the Aviation Research Centre in New Delhi on 17 May showed a Pakistan Army helicopter crossing the LoC, confirming its involvement.

### 8. When did that photograph reach Army Headquarters?
The photograph was handed over to Army Headquarters on 19 May.

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