The Hindu : Front Page : Ashok Chakra for three

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Front Page

Front Page

Ashok Chakra for three

Sandeep Dikshit

140 gallantry awards for the armed forces, Coast Guard and civilians

Captain R. Harshan

NEW DELHI: Three Army men have been awarded the Ashok Chakra, the country’s highest award for valour during peacetime. All the three – Colonel Vasanth Venugopal, Captain R. Harshan and Naib Subedar Chunni Lal – laid down their lives while battling terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Col. Vasanth was killed in counter-insurgency operations a couple of days after Defence Minister A. K. Antony met him at his battalion headquarters in Uri.

Capt. R. Harshan of 2 Parachute Regiment (Special Forces) laid down his life while battling two terrorists he tracked for two months.

Naib Subedar Chunni Lal was among the first to make a superhuman climb to a Pakistan occupied post in Siachen Glacier, now named Bana Top after the Param Vir Chakra award winner Bana Singh, who led the assault.

Awarded a Sena medal for the feat in 1987, he was conferred the Vir Chakra for beating back an intrusion attempt in 1999 on his post in Poonch (J&K). He fell on June 24 this year while countering an infiltration bid in Kupwara.

In all, the President approved 140 gallantry awards for the armed forces, Coast Guard and civilians.

These include six Kirti Chakras (the second highest award for valour), 20 Shaurya Chakras (the third highest award), two bar to Sena Medals (gallantry), 99 Sena Medals, four Nao Sena Medals and six Vayu Sena Medals. The last two are naval and air force equivalents of Sena Medals awarded to Army personnel.

In a “`rather rare” instance, two Army battalions have won three gallantry awards each. Personnel from the 9 Maratha Light Infantry, parent unit of the Chief of the Army Staff, Gen. J. J. Singh, have won an Ashok Chakra (Col. Vasanth, posthumous), a Kirti Chakra (Capt. Abhinav Handa) and Shaurya Chakra (Lance Naib B. S. Ganpat, posthumous).

Army officers said it was extremely exceptional for a battalion to garner the top three awards for valour.

After Col. Vasanth fell while intercepting terrorists in Uri, Capt. Handa took charge of the operations and his men gunned down four terrorists.

The 10 Madras Regiment has also been awarded three gallantry awards — Kirti Chakra for Naib C. Radhakrishnan (posthumous), Shaurya Chakra for P. Manohar and Sena Medal for Lt. Sukinder Guleria.

Belonging to Kattur village in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district, Naib Radhakrishnan, commanding a search team in Kupwara district, gunned down three terrorists on October 18 last year. Injured in the exchange of fire, he refused to be evacuated till the mopping up operations were completed and died of his injuries. Sub. Manohar is the only Junior Commissioned Officer among the Shaurya Chakra awardees.

Three civilians have been awarded the Kirti Chakra posthumously. Dayanand Pandey and Mohd. Shan Ahmed died while resisting robbers attempting to loot post offices in Faizabad and Jhansi (both in Uttar Pradesh), while Tarun Kumar Dutta was killed by a drug mafia in Shillong region.