A story of a patriot on the battlefield in 1977.
Patriotism is the ardent love one has for their nation, to the point of willingly putting their lives in danger to defend it. Throughout our schooling era, we have been told about numerous heroes who have fought hard for our nation’s freedom.
In that regard as well as in conjunction with the 65th Independence Day of Malaysia, meet Kpt (Rtd) V. Panir Chellvum, the epitome of bravery who successfully eliminated and captured communist terrorists for his beloved country. The 68-year-old veteran shared a glimpse of the historic event that happened in 1977.
In 1974, the young Panir Chellvum took a brave decision to join the army even though it was not his dream back then but decided to become part of the force because he was inspired by the Gurkha army who were based near his school.
In February 1977, he took part in the ‘Ops Pagar’ joint operations by MAF and the police to hunt down a band of communists in Gerik, Perak.
The 22-year-old second lieutenant at the time, led a five-man group assigned to ambush the communists identified as ‘Category A’ police intelligence near Air Kala in Gerik.
Recalling further, he said “It was a special operation as the information gathered by police intelligence was graded ‘A1’, which confirmed the communists’ presence in the area,”
Delving more into the battlefield, Panir explained “It was dark. As we were placing claymore mines at the site, a torchlight suddenly shone from behind us. I quickly instructed all equipment, except for our communication set that weighed 6kg, to be abandoned,”
“Being aware of the situation, they (enemies) started to crawl and took cover behind the trees as we saw the torchlight coming nearer to us,” noting that one of his squad members immediately opened fire on the enemy.
The gunfire resulted in a 30-minute-long gun battle with the opposition group comprising 15 men.
“In the midst of the gunfight, we overheard the opponents ordering their soldiers to retreat in Chinese with the word “cau.” All was silent until we heard someone sneaking near my spot, crackling the dry leaves,” he added.
When the noise kept on approaching nearer and nearer, Panir then hurled five hand grenades towards the sound and 4 exploded.
“They fled and I immediately contacted the artillery fire team to provide us ‘illuminating rounds’ to brighten the area,” where he had witnessed the sling bags of the enemy shattered around.
Taking no rest, he immediately went patrolling the following day despite the potential attack from the enemy, Pannir and his team followed a blood trail and saw movements among the leaves.
They discovered a rifle butt jutting out covered by the leaves.
Studying the situation, he then instructed not to shoot because he could see the person wasn’t active and just stood there. After engaging with the deserted communist saying that he wouldn’t hurt him, he surrendered himself.
On questioning, the 27-year-old communist revealed that the man Panir had shot was their leader.
For his bravery and successful feat of taking down a communist group, Panir Chellvum was awarded the Pingat Gagah Berani in 1978.
Furthermore, this patriot emphasised that we should embrace the freedom we have and keep working to strengthen our country as a whole.
Panir is undoubtedly one of Malaysia’s heroes we must cherish.
Happy Independence Day everyone!
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Telegram for more updates and breaking news.
