Kambampati Nachiketa

Wing Commander Kambampati Nachiketa Vayusena Medal (Gallantry), is a serving officer of the Indian Air Force. Wing Commander Nachiketa came into the limelight during the Kargil War when on 27 May 1999, as a Flight Lieutenant, he was captured by Pakistani troops in Kashmir following ejection from his MiG-27L aircraft after his engine was hit by Pakistani Stinger missile causing an engine flame-out while flying against infiltrator positions during the initial stages of Operation Safed Sagar. He was held in Pakistani custody as the first Indian prisoner of war of the conflict.

Wing Commander Nachiketa was born on 31 May 1973 to Mr K R K Sastry and Mrs Laxmi Sastry. He studied at Kendriya Vidyalaya in Delhi, and joined the Indian Air Force after training at the National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla, near Pune.

Kargil War
Nachiketa was a Flight Lieutenant during the Kargil Operations. He was one of the pilots from No. 9 Squadron IAF who took part on a strike in the Batalik Sector on 26 May 1999. Armed with 80mm rockets, Nachiketa carried out an attack on an enemy concentration. He carried out a second attack on the target using the aircraft's 30mm cannon. Subsequently the engine flamed out.

All attempts to re-light the engine failed and Nachiketa was forced to eject.

After landing on the ground, it appeared that initially Nachiketa was able to gather his wits and evade immediate capture. However after two to three hours, a Pakistani Army Patrol caught him.

Shooting down of Wingman
Flying top cover to the MiG-27s were MiG-21M aircraft of No. 17 Squadron IAF. One of the escort pilots Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja left his station and came in low to locate Nachiketa. He was fired at by a Stinger missile and was shot down. A postmortem examination conducted by Indian military authorities claimed that Ahuja had landed safely after ejecting from his plane, but had been killed by Pakistani soldiers after being subjected to torture. It was reported that the left knee fracture was sustained when he parachuted down, but the gunshots show that he landed alive and was shot. And his death was called as a cold blooded murder. Pakistanis claimed the body was found after days of the plane being down due to the hostile terrain and was in bad condition because animals had tempered with it.

Life as a prisoner
After being captured behind Pakistani lines after his MiG-27 crashed in a bombing run in 1999, Flt Lt Nachiketa remained in custody of Pakistani forces for eight days. Nachiketa was first taken to an undisclosed place in the Batalik Sector. After a two-hour wait, he was taken by helicopter to Skardu. After his return Nachiketa was not willing to disclose his experience while he was in captivity.

According to him, the experience was "difficult to be described in words" and felt that "death would have been a better solution". He still suffers from back pain due to his injury during the para-landing and physical hardship.

He was interrogated by the Director of Operations of Pakistan Air Force, Kaiser Tufail. This interrogation was termed as "very civil" by Kaiser who said it was a casual talk between two officers rather than the captor and a POW with a discussion about common issues in the two rival air forces. He expressed his mandate being to maintain the cordiality of a crew room and that he was detailed to inquire the circumstances of the ejection and the mission.

Repatriation
Nachiketa remained a prisoner for about  a week and was repatriated to India on 3 June 1999. He was handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pakistan and subsequently was repatriated over the Indian border checkpost at Wagah, on the Lahore Amritsar Road.

Nachiketa is a Wing Commander and flies Ilyushin Il-78 mid air refuelling transport aircraft with No. 78 Squadron IAF stationed at Agra. He was transferred to transports due to injuries he sustained during para-landing.