Life has come full circle for Naik Sarup Singh, who turns 106 on July 15. He spent his prime fighting wars for Britain and later independent India only to realise their futility a century later. Born in 1911, he got recruited in the army in 1941. The soldier inside him is still alive. “I never […]

Life has come full circle for Naik Sarup Singh, who turns 106 on July 15. He spent his prime fighting wars for Britain and later independent India only to realise their futility a century later.

Born in 1911, he got recruited in the army in 1941.

The soldier inside him is still alive. “I never feared, though had a close shave with death several times during the World War II and 1947-48 Indo-Pak conflict.

I never got injured in the army,” he says. On Wednesday, 15 Punjab, which has a history of 311 years and is one of the oldest regiments, reached Chira village in Pinjore to honour its only alive soldier who fought the Battle of Zoji La in the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war.

Sarup retired in 1959 and later worked as a security guard in a cement factory in Pinjore.

“I only trust God. Everything belongs to him. All human beings are a same community.” He is said to have saved the lives of 116 Muslims at Karanpur village in Pinjore when riots broke out after the Partition in 1947. “Villagers wanted to kill Muslim men and violate their women. But I resisted and succeeded,” he says.

He had a gun and gave shelter to Muslims in his house for over a month.

He got late in joining back to unit by 45 days but when he told the reason he was honoured. “Families which migrated to Pakistan later also kept coming to meet him,” said Rajinder Singh, eldest son of Sarup Singh.

Once 45 of his colleagues died but not a single pellet touched him in Java (Indonesia) in World War II.