India drove the intruders off the heights it had lost, and declared Operation Vijay complete on 26 July 1999.
01Tololing and Tiger Hill
In early May 1999 shepherds reported armed men on the ridges above Kargil. The intruders sat on peaks of 4,000 to 5,500 metres, looking down on National Highway 1A. Indian infantry had to climb sheer slopes at night under fire, in thin air. Tololing was taken on 13 June after weeks of fighting. The Air Force struck in Operation Safed Sagar. Tiger Hill was recaptured on 4 July, and Point 4875 soon after. Captain Vikram Batra (‘Yeh dil maange more’), Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey, Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav and Rifleman Sanjay Kumar won the Param Vir Chakra.
02Vijay Diwas
Under American pressure, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed in Washington on 4 July to pull back, and the last positions were cleared by the end of the month. India had kept the war on its own side of the Line of Control. 527 Indian soldiers were killed. The Kargil Review Committee examined the intelligence failure that let the intrusion go unseen. Every year on 26 July, Kargil Vijay Diwas, the nation remembers them at the war memorial at Dras, below Tololing.
Kargil was the first war fought between India and Pakistan after both had nuclear weapons, and India won it without crossing the Line of Control.