Lt. Saurabh Kalia - A visit to his Smriti Kaksh - Palampur, HP
This visit of ours deserved a separate post. I had read about Lt Saurabh Kalia's gruesome treatment as PoW at the hands of Paxtani soldiers. May 15, 1999 was the day he and his jawans went missing. His mother suffered a heart attack upon hearing the news. On June 9, Paxtan returned the tortured remains of Lt Kalia and his men. This was from the book Kargil by Rachna Bisht Rawat. In the book she also mentioned that from that day till now, visitors visit the Smriti Kaksh (museum) built in Lt Kalia's memory, meet Vijaya ma'am ( his mother) and spend some time with them. We visited their home sometime in May end 2022 after we finished our VaishnoDevi darshan in Jammu. We had a plan to go to Dharamshala. A tweet from another fallen soldier's mother Meghna Girish ma'am (mother of Major Akshay Girish) informed me about the events surrounding May 15. I was going to go to Dharamshala and upon checking the map I found Palampur where the Kalia family lived, was only 40 odd km