The War South of Sutlej
Travelling from Head Sulemanki upon entering the small town of Haveli Lakha there is Martyrs’ Graveyard
Graceful in limestone whitewash, neatly aligned these are graves of soldiers of 1 Baloch ‘The Gallant One’
The onsite board announces that on Sep 9, D Company of 1 Baloch attacked Asaf Wala
These soldiers embraced shahadat in that gallant action
The board goes on to announce that Asaf Wala was captured, in reality, well… not exactly
Let’s take a look at battle actions South of Sutlej
Dominated by Sulemanki and Hussainiwala head-works, the sector south of Sutlej didn’t see much of the fanfare of #SeptemberWar
A Pakistani Independent Infantry Brigade Group faced it’s Indian equivalent
Pakistani commander decided to take initiative to push inside Fazilka bulge
1 Baloch was to launch an attack on what was believed to be Asaf Wala Border Post
D Company on a mid day attack on 9 Sep encountered a regular Indian Battalion 14 Punjab
Despite of force mismatch they fought gallantly capturing a platoon location
A brave action by D Company but..
14 Punjab soon evicted them causing casualties
These were the soldiers we met at Haveli Lakha Graveyard
1 Baloch would go on to capture two other localities, Chananwala and Khanwala
The former was of particular importance in later operations but let’s first meet Indian 14 Punjab
14 Punjab (Nabha Akal) defended the Asaf Wala post on Fazilka Road
Indian accounts tell us that later into the battle their locality came under deliberate attacks by 22 Punjab
In the span of two days they beat back more than 4 attempts giving an excellent account of themselves
A performance par excellence was also delivered by Pakistani 4 Punjab
Chananwala initially captured by 1 Baloch was converted to a well defended locality by 4 Punjab who were well dug in by 23 Sep
This location came under a formidable Indian counter attack on 25 Sep
3/9 Gorkha Rifles supported by an Armour Squadron attacked Chananwala
4 Punjab absorbed the Phase 1 thrust by two companies with patience and then struck back
In a brilliant maneuver they encircled the attacking companies
2 Officers, 4 JCOs and 45 Soldiers were taken prisoner
The area up to Chananwala stayed with Pakistan until a ceasefire was agreed upon by Sep 26
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For better understanding of battle actions in this thread here is a custom marked map for my readers
