हिंदीOn this day

Battle of Dograi

Victor3rd Battalion, Jat RegimentLieutenant Colonel Desmond Hayde
1965vs
Pakistan Army defenders of the Ichhogil linePakistani battalion commanders at Dograi

The 3rd Jats reached the Ichhogil canal within sight of Lahore on 6 September 1965. Pulled back, they returned two weeks later and took Dograi again in close fighting, the night before the ceasefire.

Date: 6 and 21–22 September 1965Where: Dograi, on the Ichhogil canal east of Lahore (Pakistan)Type: Battle
Photo: B. SurajPatro1997 · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Cite

MLA

“Battle of Dograi.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/battle-of-dograi-1965/. Accessed .

APA

Hindu History. (2026). Battle of Dograi. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/battle-of-dograi-1965/

Result

3 Jat took Dograi on the first day of the war, was ordered back, and retook it in a night attack on 21–22 September.

01To the Ichhogil canal

On 6 September 1965 the Indian XI Corps crossed the border towards Lahore. The 3rd Battalion of the Jat Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Desmond Hayde, pushed down the Grand Trunk Road and by the morning had crossed the Ichhogil canal, the big defensive ditch Pakistan had dug in front of Lahore, reaching Batapur. Other units had not kept up, and the battalion was ordered back to the Indian side of the canal near Dograi.

02The night of 21 September

For two weeks Dograi stayed in Pakistani hands, fortified with bunkers in its houses. On the night of 21–22 September 3 Jat attacked again. The fighting went from house to house and bunker to bunker with bayonet and grenade, and by morning the village was taken, with many prisoners. Hayde was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra.

03The ceasefire

The ceasefire came into force on 23 September, with Indian troops holding Dograi on the edge of Lahore. Under the Tashkent agreement of January 1966 both sides went back to their pre-war positions, and Dograi was handed back. A war memorial to the battle stands at Khasa, near Amritsar, and 3 Jat carries Dograi among its battle honours.

Why it matters

Dograi is remembered as the farthest and hardest-won Indian advance towards Lahore in 1965.

Places near the battlefield 8

Lahore (Lavapura)Standing
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Lahore (Lavapura)

The old capital of Punjab on the Ravi, part of the Hindu Shahi realm until Mahmud’s conquest, and from 1799 to 1849 the capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Sikh empire. At Partition in 1947 nearly all its Hindus and Sikhs had to leave.

Ram Tirath (Bhagwan Valmiki Tirath), AmritsarStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Ram Tirath (Bhagwan Valmiki Tirath), Amritsar

The place west of Amritsar where the people of Punjab hold that Maharshi Valmiki had his ashram, where Mata Sita lived after leaving Ayodhya and where Lava and Kusha were born. Its Kartik Purnima fair is one of the oldest in Punjab.

Mata Lal Devi Temple, AmritsarStanding
Independent Bharat

Mata Lal Devi Temple, Amritsar

A temple built around the memory of a woman devotee of Amritsar, Lal Devi, whose followers made it a small Vaishno Devi in the plains: low passages, ankle-deep water, and the Devi’s three pindis at the end.

Durgiana Temple, AmritsarRebuilt
Renaissance and the struggle for Swaraj

Durgiana Temple, Amritsar

The chief Hindu temple of Amritsar, standing in the middle of a sarovar and reached by a causeway, built in the same form as the Harmandir Sahib. Beside it the Bada Hanuman temple holds the famous Langur Mela of Navratri.

AmritsarRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Amritsar

The city of the pool of nectar, founded by the fourth Sikh Guru around the tank in which the Harmandir Sahib stands. Twice blown up by Ahmad Shah Abdali and twice rebuilt, it is the heart of the Sikh faith, the Dharmic sibling of the Hindus.

Sri Harmandir Sahib, AmritsarRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Sri Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar

The holiest gurdwara of the Sikhs, set in the Amrit Sarovar dug by Guru Ram Das, where Guru Arjan Dev installed the Adi Granth in 1604. Afghan armies desecrated and blew it up in the 18th century; the Khalsa rebuilt it each time.

Partition Museum, AmritsarStanding
Independent Bharat

Partition Museum, Amritsar

A museum in Amritsar’s old Town Hall, a short walk from the Golden Temple, given wholly to the Partition of 1947: the trains, the camps, the lost homes, told mostly in the voices of those who lived through it.

Jallianwala Bagh, AmritsarStanding
Renaissance and the struggle for Swaraj

Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar

The walled ground near the Harmandir Sahib where, on Baisakhi, 13 April 1919, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer’s troops fired on an unarmed crowd for about ten minutes without warning. The official count was 379 dead; Indian inquiries put it near a thousand.