Saurabh Kalia  Captain Saurabh Kalia (1976–1999) was an officer of the Indian Army who died during the Kargil War while being held as a prisoner of war by the Pakistan Army. He and five soldiers of his patrol were captured and allegedly tortured prior to being killed. Pakistan has, however, denied torturing any Indian army personnel. Saurabh Kalia was born on 29 June 1976 in Amritsar, Punjab, India, to Vijaya and N. K. Kalia. He was educated at the D.A.V Public School in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, and then graduated from Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University in 1997 with a First Class BSc Med degree. He won scholarships throughout his academic career. Kalia was selected for the Indian Military Academy in August 1997 through the Combined Defence Services Examination and was commissioned on 12 December 1998. He was posted to the 4th battalion Jat Regiment in the Kargil Sector, where he arrived in mid-January 1999 after reporting at the Jat Regimental Centre, Bareilly, on 31 December 1998. In the first two weeks of May 1999, several patrols were conducted in the Kaksar Langpa area of Kargil district to check whether the snow had retreated enough for the summer positions to be re-occupied. Kalia, who then held the rank of lieutenant, was the first Indian army officer to observe and report large-scale intrusion of Pakistani Army and foreign mercenaries on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) at Kargil. He assumed guard of Bajrang Post at 13,000–14,000 feet to check infiltration in the Kaksar area. On 15 May 1999, Kalia and five other soldiers – Sepoys Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh of the 4th Jat Regiment - were on a routine patrol of the Bajrang Post in the Kaksar sector in the Ladakh mountains when they engaged in a firefight with Pakistani forces across the LOC. The patrol out of ammunition, were encircled by a platoon of Pakistani rangers, and captured before Indian reinforcements could reach them. Radio Skardu of Pakistan announced the capture. It was after this that India discovered hundreds of guerrillas had established fortified positions on the peaks of the hills deep inside the Indian side of the LoC, with sophisticated equipment and supply lines back to Pakistan administered Kashmir. Indian officials claimed that Kalia and his men were in captivity from 15 May 1999 – 7 June 1999 and were subjected to torture.