President Kovind becomes emotional while presenting ASHOK CHAKRA, posthumously

The president of India, Ram Nath Kovind today became extremely emotional and was seen wiping his tears in full public view with his hankerchief after he presented the mother and the widow of the Indian Garud Cammando of Indian Air Force late Corporal Jyoti Prakash Nirala, the most coveted award ASHOK CHAKRA posthumously on the 69th celebration of Republic day at Rajpath today.

This is for the very first time that that a Garud Commando of Indian Air force has been awarded the Ashok Chakra posthumosly. After presenting the honour to the late Corporal Nirala, president Kovind after being seated on the dias, looked too tense and emotional and took out his hankerchief to wipe the tears literally rolling from his eyes, focussedly shown by few television channels.

This rare scene of the head of the largest democracy of the world becoming emotional over the sacrifice of our young soldiers and IAF corporal in action has infact made every single citizen of the country emotional and passionate. Kudos to our true heroes because of whom about 135 crore Indians are safe and sound and leading their comfortable lives.

Primarily hailing from the Rohtas district of Bihar, the IAF Garud Commando Jyoti Prakash Nirala who was posted under operation Rakshak in IAF’s Garud’s special forces unit showed exemplary courage by single handedly eliminating three out of six hard core fully trained Laskare Tayyeba militants hiding in a house in Bindapore, Jammu and Kashmir.

In all six militants of LET were wiped out in this operation considered to be one of the greatest setbacks to the LET masterminds’ monitoring the operation from across the border. It was primarily due the brave and intelligent actions of Corporal Nirala that the 6 militants had no option to escape. They therefore became desperate and started throwing grenades on the ambush party while rushing out of the hide, fully terrified.

Nirala responded by retaliating and opening a heavy lethal attack on the terrorists. During the firing he gunned downed two terrorists on the spot while injured two other grievously. However, while valiantly fighting these terrorists he too was fatally injured and finally succumbed to the terroris bullets thus making a supreme sacrifice for the country.

He valiantly fought till the last and in turn preferred to martyr himself. The six killed terrorists on 18th November, 2017 included Owaid the nephew of Zakir u Rehman Lakhvi, the main sponseror and conspiracy hatcher of the Mumbai killings that happened on 26 /11 years ago.

Major Vijayant Bist has also been awarded the Kirti Chakra for exhibiting outstanding bravery while killing two hard core terrorists and saving the life of a colleague in an ambush he was leading in Chorgali forest, Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. Major Vijayant had spotted infiltration on June 6, 2017. Immediately engaging the terrorists, which led to an intense firefight, and a resulting infiltration into Goalta forest, he tracked and engaged them in a fierce gun battle on June 7.

While closing in on the terrorists, his comrade got injured. Despite the heavy fire, Major Vijayant crawled and pulled his comrade to safety. The terrorists continued to engage the patrol. Major Vijayant continued to press the escaping terrorists. He guided and motivated his team to continue searching for the terrorists for the next 48 hours under adverse weather conditions, displaying astonishing physical and mental perseverance. On June 9 the terrorists were sighted again. Major Vijayant neutralised one terrorist and engaged and killed another at point blank range. Salutes to these gallantary men who are are true saviours.
SUNIL NEGI