2 Army officers awarded Ashok Chakra posthumously

Next of kin of two army personnel, who laid down their lives combating militants in Kashmir, will be tomorrow presented Ashok Chakra -- the highest peacetime military honour of the country.
Major Mukund Varadarajan and Naik Neeraj Kumar laid down their lives while battling groups of militants in separate operations in Shopian and Kupwara districts of Kashmir respectively, Udhampur-based defence spokesman Colonel S D Goswami told PTI.
While Kumar was named for the award today, the announcement regarding Varadarajan's selection was made on August 15 last year.
"Major Mukund Varadarajan, Company Commander, received information about the presence of three terrorists in village of Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on April 25, 2014. This group had targeted polling officials just a day prior.

Major Mukund acted swiftly by deploying troops in an effective cordon and simultaneously evacuated civilians from the target house," the spokesman said.
He said Major Mukund led from the front the demolition team and used the resources available to him in a critically short time period to bring down the target house.

"This aggressive action forced the terrorists to shift their position to an outhouse in the compound. Major Mukund along with his buddy Sepoy Vikram displaying raw courage, crawled in proximity to the outhouse.
"The officer lobbed a grenade inside the cement outhouse killing one terrorist instantaneously. Another terrorist present in the outhouse opened a burst of auto fire thereby seriously injuring Major Mukund," he said.

The spokesman said although bleeding profusely, the officer crawled ahead unmindful of his grave injury, fired and neutralised the second terrorist.