‘I thought I was going to die… so I tried to kill as many I could’: When A Gorkha Killed 30 Talibani Militants

‘I thought I was going to die… so I tried to kill as many I could’: When A Gorkha Killed 30 Talibani Militants


Gurkhas are a mighty force, the brave of the bravest and all of us know that for sure. During the time of World War II, Hitler was stated saying, “If I had Gurkhas, no armies in the world will defeat me. “ Even, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw quoted, “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gorkha.”

Gorkhas have served for the British, Indian and Nepalese armies as they belong to Nepal. The Gorkhas played a major part in fighting in the world war II as they served in the regiment which reported directly to the Queen. Gorkhas are so furious fighters that the British government couldn’t let them go.

Before 1994, there were four British Regiments which are mixed into one, called Royal Gurkha Rifles Infantry regiment.

The Gurkhas with the British army serve in South East Asia, Europe and Africa. Apart from them, they are also deployed in Afghanistan during the war on Afghanistan was going on.

On the night of 17th September 2010, Sergeant Dipprasad Pun was manning his post near Babaji at Helmland province.

He was on sentry duty for the night guarding the unit’s compound. It was a two-story post and it was not like locals attacking could be taken as unexpected, so the soldiers had to be ready with their machine guns, grenades and weapons to tackle anything which might be coming their way.

On that day, Sergeant was alone in the south compound manning the post, because the rest of his platoon was pushed out to patrol for the coming parliamentary elections. He heard some clinking noise, at first he thought it was a cow, but later his suspicions turned right when he saw two Talibanis activating IED at the gate of his post.

It was a well-planned assault from Taliban. He quickly informed his commander and also, called for more artillery support.

Pun started firing from his machine gun and removed the tripod. He used every round and fired almost 400 rounds and tossed 17 grenades on the attackers. He also threw a landmine on the enemy. When he was out of grenades, he started shooting from his service rifle SA80 to fire.

He was defending his base from the roof. At all times, the Talibani militants were around 50 ft from the sergeant. He soon realized that two Talibani fighters was almost on the roof. For once, he shot a man and fell from roof by his machine gun. The second one escaped from the machine gun, then Pun threw the metal tripod of his machine gun on him, instantly making him fall of the roof.

In all, he fired 250 machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, threw 17 grenades, threw one claymore mine.

“At that time I wasn’t worried, there wasn’t any choice but to fight. The Taliban were all around the checkpoint, I was alone,” he told the crowd gathered at the ceremony. “I had so many of them around me that I thought I was definitely going to die so I thought I’d kill as many of them as I could before they killed me.”

The intensity of the fight was so high that at one point Pun shouted in Nepalese ‘Marchi Talai’ – ‘I will kill you’ when a Talibani fighter tried to approach him from the adjacent roof.

Pun received the glorious Victoria Cross from the Queen.

Pun’s Grandfather who received a Victoria cross for his gallantry in the second world war at Burma front. Even his father served in the Gurkha regiment in the army. We salute him for his courage.
 
Last edited:

Forum statistics

Threads
2,094
Messages
11,539
Members
580
Latest member
TheMPratapSingh
Back
Top