TEHRAN – A biography of the war hero Gholamreza Chagharvand has been recently been published by Sureh Sabz in Tehran.

The biography entitled “Lorestan Sacrifice” has been compiled by his sister Soheila, who also attended a special ceremony the Army Ground Force organized on Sunday to introduce the book.

Speaking at the ceremony Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari, commander of the Army Ground Force, pointed to Soheila Chagharvand and said, “She has been living like Hazrat Zeinab (SA) [sister of Imam Hussein (AS)], keeping her brother’s memory alive.”

“Nobody knew Martyr Chagharvand, but she found people who witnessed how her brother was beheaded; she has accomplished a great cultural task,” he added.

Mehrdad Veis-Karami, an MP who represents Khorramabad in Lorestan Province, also attended the ceremony. 

“The superiority of our air force to Iraq’s was one of the reasons behind our victory in the war; nine pilots from Lorestan were martyred during the war and Martyr Gholamreza Chagharvand was one of them,” he said.

Born in 1953 in Khorramabad, Gholamreza Chagharvand was employed as a helicopter pilot in the Iran Army Aviation Corps in 1975.

He participated in several operations in the Kordestan region in the early 1980s to fight against the separatists.

His last operation was carried out on October 4, 1980 when he and his co-pilots Hossein Mesri and Adel Musavi were assigned to a mission in the Dehloran region.

The helicopter was shot down by Iraqi forces, forcing him to land as Mesri was critically injured. Iraqis captured Chagharvand and his comrades. Mesri was transferred to a hospital. 

The commander of the Iraqi forces asked Chagharvand to insult Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, to let him join other Iranian prisoners of war in the Iraqi camps. However, he refused to do so. And the commander beheaded Chagharvand.

Chagharvand’s remains were buried by a local old man near the village of Jaliz as his grandchild Divan Jalizi later told his sister.    

The region was excavated in 1983 to transfer his body to Khorramabad.

Photo: Grave of war hero Gholamreza Chagharvand. 

MMS/YAW