PATNA, Sep 19: Four of the 18 jawans martyred in fidayeen attack at the Uri army base in Jammu and Kashmir were from Bihar and 16 slain soldiers belonged to the 6th battalion of Bihar Regiment Centre (BRC).
Seven bodies of the martyred jawans, three from Bihar and two each from Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, reached Varanasi in an AN 32 aircraft of Indian Air Force from where their coffins were being carried for the last journey.
Bodies of Havildar Ashok Kumar, Sepoy Rakesh Singh, Naik S K Vidyarthi (from Bihar), Sepoy Javra Munda and Naiman Kujur (from Jharkhand) and Ganesh Shankar and Harinder Yadav from Uttar Pradesh were received at the airport by Brig N Rajkumar and a host of army officers and soldiers.
After giving them a guard of honour, coffins of the slain soldiers wrapped in the Tricolour were kept on flower-bedecked army trucks before they headed for their respective villages. Friends, relatives and a large number of people bade a tearful farewell to the slain soldiers.
A deputy commandant rank officer along with jawans of BRC accompanied each body in the last journey of the dead jawans to their respective villages. “We salute the martyrs! this is the hallmark of Indian soldier. We pay our heartfelt condolences to the families of martyrs who laid down their lives in the line of duty,” Brig RajKumar said.
Formed in 1941, while regularising the 11th(territorial) battalion ,19th Hyderabad regiment and raising new battalion, the Bihar Regimental Centre is one of the most revered infantry units with its headquarters in Danapur,about 15 kms west of the State capital, Patna. BRC’s jawans and officers had played a stellar role in the 1999 Kargil war.
The regiment has a stellar history of service resulting in decorations such as the Maha Vir Chakra,Vir Chakra and Ashok Chakra to its personnel. The BRC saw action in the Burma campaign and during the Indo-Pak war in 1965 it captured Bedori, paving the way to regain Haji Pir pass.
Again in 1971 India-Pakistan war, it captured Akhaura and was later conferred the honour of ‘East Pakistan’ for its achievement. Five soldiers of 21st battalion BRC were martyred on August 6, 2013, in an attack by Pakistani intruders on an Indian Army post at Chakkan da Bagh along the Line of Control (LoC). (UNI)
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