Cavalier India Defence Training Academy

The Indian Express brings stories of the riflewomen posted near the Line of Control and monitoring a 10,200-ft-high Pass, learning to live with shelling, and excited about coming snow. In a first, the Indian Army has deployed a platoon of women soldiers near the Line of Control. (Express Photo by Shuaib Masoodi) The first time she heard an artillery shell drop in the valley below, Wanjen and her platoon members rushed to an underground bunker. Backs to the wall, hearts pounding, they did a quick headcount. “We did it several times after that. It is a different feeling each time — the anxiety, the adrenaline rush…,” she says. The 28-year-old senior Assam Rifles riflewoman, who, like her colleagues, doesn’t want her second name revealed, has six years of experience in Nagaland and Meghalaya. But this, she admits, is an entirely new battlefield — 10,200 feet above sea level, with the icy cold winds carrying the boom of artillery shells from down below. “That moment in the bunker is specia...