About 70 kilometers northwest of Doda town, lies an extraordinary relic - an old, imported vehicle that once roared through the dense forests of Dessa, transporting massive wooden logs across a 14-kilometer jungle track.
It is a story that few in Doda or outside know, and yet it is one that echoes the sheer willpower, innovation, and entrepreneurial vision of a man who dared to challenge nature’s toughest terrains in the 1950s.
That was a time when Doda district had only a single motorable road – Batote-Doda Road, that too under construction. At a time when this was the only link connecting the region with the outside world, this powerful truck was already operational in a forest where no proper road existed.
This forgotten vehicle, now rusting silently in the remote village of Gurkhan, is a machine that narrates the story of innovation. Transported in parts on the backs of labourers through treacherous mountains and assembled right there in the forest, it was a marvel of engineering in its time.
Even today, its rubber tyres lie intact beside it—a testimony to the superior quality of technology used.
Local villagers call it the “Kapoor truck,” but few know the full story behind it.
Sometime in the late 1950s, Mr Kapoor, a Delhi-based timber contractor and owner of the Kapoor Brothers firm, was awarded a lease to extract timber from the Dessa forests.
Initially, the lumbering operation was completely manual involving labourers, who chopped trees and carried logs to nearby processing points. But the operation was painfully slow, and Kapoor, known for his ambition and progressive mindset, decided to revolutionise the process.
He planned to install a diesel-powered bandsaw machine deep inside the forest near Dessa Nallah, close to a tributary of the Chenab River. The idea was to cut timber into wooden sleepers and float them down the river to Akhnoor, from where they would be transported to Jammu and Pathankot.
However, he was faced with a major hurdle. The massive tree trunks could not be carried manually from the felling sites to the bandsaw location. That’s when Kapoor decided to construct a road network through the jungle. With the help of hundreds of local labourers and villagers, more than 14 kilometers of road was carved out of the forests, with no access to machinery or external support.
The real test lay in bringing a vehicle into a forest where no road existed from Batote to Dessa, a stretch of more than 150 kilometers. Kapoor once again thought out-of-the-box. After consulting engineers in Germany and India, he imported a heavy-duty truck from abroad, dismantled it into parts, and had the components carried on the backs of labourers and ponies across mountains into the dense forest.
Engineers, some reportedly brought from Germany, assembled the vehicle in the jungle. The site was lit up with hundreds of kerosene lamps as the team worked day and night. Wireless communication devices, a technology unheard-of in those days, were also set up to keep engineers and workers connected across the site.
Remnants of those devices are reportedly still found in a few houses in the Dessa region, although many were lost or destroyed during the years of militancy.
With the vehicle finally operating and the road ready, the operation took off. Timber logs were then hauled to the bandsaw and processed efficiently. The ambitious project was set to transform the forest economy of the region.
But the project’s decline was just as swift, almost inexplicable.
According to local oral history, Mr Kapoor, a towering, handsome man nearly seven feet tall, began to lose interest in the project. Some say personal distractions, including his growing romantic involvement in the area, led to his negligence. As discipline faltered and his presence at the site diminished, the once-thriving operation came to a standstill.
His involvement in the region drastically reduced. Then, one day, Kapoor left the region, abandoning his machines, the bandsaw, and the iconic vehicle, never to return.
Over time, smaller tools and equipment were taken away by villagers. But the truck remained there on the site, like a sleeping giant, resting under the shadows of the towering trees it once helped harvest.
Today, that vehicle still lies in the forests of Gurkhan, not far from the now-inaccessible jungle road. Though worn out by rust, it retains its aura. Its frame is intact, its tyres still in good shape, and its presence is imposing.
For locals, it is a symbol of vision, courage, and a pioneering spirit. Not just a machine.
Yet this engineering marvel, which once defied the odds in one of the most remote corners of the Himalayas, lies forgotten under layers of moss and fragmented memory of those who lived in the years of its grandeur.
With a little imagination and official effort, this relic can still be preserved, not as a machine of utility, but as a monument of legacy.
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