By IANS
New Delhi : The body of Capt. Sunil Kumar Chaudhary, who was killed fighting insurgents in Assam a day after being awarded the Sena Medal, is being taken to his hometown in Jammu and Kashmir where the cremation will take place with full military honours.
The body was flown in a special aircraft from Dibrugarh in Assam to Pathankot in Punjab, from where it will be taken to Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, a defence ministry statement said Monday.
Chaudhary was killed Sunday afternoon in a counter-insurgency operation in Barapathar village in Assam’s Tinsukia district.
He had killed two militants of the 28 battalion of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) even after being shot in his neck. He later succumbed to his injuries.
Chaudhary was named a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry in the awards announced Friday on the eve of the country’s Republic Day.
“The award was for an operation in Nabjothi (also in Tinsukia) in July last year in which two militants, including self styled Sgt. Palash Moni, an action group commander of ULFA, were killed,” the statement said.
Son of a serving Indian Army officer, Lt. Col. P.L. Chaudhary, Sunil Kumar’s brother Ankur is an officer in the Indian Air Force.
Chaudhary completed his early education at the Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bangalore, graduated from Pune University and was a post-graduate of Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.
Commissioned from the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun into the 7/11 Gorkha Rifles on Dec 10, 2004, Chaudhary had excelled in platoon weapons and machine gun courses at the Infantry School, Mhow.
Before moving to counter-terrorism operations, he was posted at Kolkata.