Nation pays homage to 1962 war martyrs

India Saturday paid homage to Indian soldiers who died in the 1962 war with China.

In the first such function to remember the martyrs of the 1962 war, which India lost to China, Defence Minister A.K Antony laid the wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti here.

He was followed by the three service chiefs, and the Field Marshal of Indian Air Force, Arjan Singh, who is the only living Indian military officer with a five-star rank.

The nearly month-long war with China, in which about 4,000 soldiers and officers died, began Oct 20, 1962.

Admiral Arun Prakash, a former chief of the naval staff, has described this remembrance as "a gesture of epic significance, not just to a million-and-a-half Indian men and women bearing arms for the nation, but even more so for the two to three million-strong fraternity of armed forces veterans".

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