About this stamp
Two Hundred Years of the Poona Horse
India Post issued this ₹5 stamp on 11 February 2017 for the bicentenary of the Poona Horse, one of the most decorated regiments of the Indian Army. It was raised on 15 July 1817 at Sirur near Pune, as part of an auxiliary force for service in the Peshwa’s territory, and was not yet fully raised when it fought at Koregaon, where 300 horsemen held out against 28,600 horse and foot. In 1820 the 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry was raised, also at Sirur; the regiment of today unites the two.
From Kooshab to Phillora
In the Persian campaign of 1856–57 the two regiments broke an infantry square at Kooshab and captured the Standard of the Shah’s bodyguard; Lieutenants A. T. Moore and J. G. Malcolmson won the Victoria Cross there. Lt H. E. Wood, later a Field Marshal, won the regiment’s third VC in 1858 and Lt F. A. De Pass a fourth, posthumously, in the First World War.
On 8 September 1965 the regiment led the Indian advance into Pakistan and took Phillora, destroying 23 enemy Patton tanks. Its commandant, Lt Col A. B. Tarapore, was killed on 16 September and awarded the Param Vir Chakra, the first in the Armoured Corps. In 1971, at Basantar, 2nd Lt Arun Khetarpal destroyed tank after tank until his own was hit, and was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously. The Pakistanis came to call the regiment Fakhr-e-Hind, the Pride of India.
The stamp was designed by Alka Sharma; Security Printing Press, Hyderabad printed 403,640.
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