The Pakistani Army has publicly admitted its involvement in the 1999 Kargil War against India for the first time. Speaking at an event in Rawalpindi to mark the country's Defence Day, Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir said several soldiers had laid down their lives while fighting the wars in 1965, 1971 and in Kargil in 1999.

"Be it 1948, 1965, 1971, or the Kargil war of 1999, thousands of soldiers have sacrificed their lives for Pakistan and Islam," the Army chief said at the event.

The Pakistani army has never publicly acknowledged its direct role in the Kargil War and has officially claimed that it was the work of "mujahideen or freedom fighters".

Pakistan suffered a crushing defeat in the 1999 war, with Indian soldiers successfully reclaiming the positions occupied by infiltrators on the Indian side of the LoC in the Kargil sector, including Tiger Hill, after a nearly three-month-long battle in Ladakh.

Then US President Bill Clinton also asked Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order the withdrawal of Army personnel from the Kargil sector.

The day is observed as 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' to commemorate India's victory over Pakistan in the war. A total of 545 soldiers laid down their lives fighting the Pakistani intruders.

India has always maintained the operation was a strategy by Pakistan to assert its claim over Kashmir.

India has several evidence of involvement of the Pakistani army in Kargil, including prisoners of war, their pay books, uniforms, and weapons. The Indian Army buried several dead Pakistani soldiers in Kargil after the war.

The Pakistani Army had refused to accept the bodies of soldiers killed in Kargil. The authorities had secretly sought bodies of Pakistani officers killed in the war.

Source: India Today