Lt Navdeep Singh had only served in the army for five months,guarding the treacherous Gurez sector as leader of the elite Ghatak team of his unit,when he took part in a daring charge against an infiltration attempt,that led to one of the the biggest encounters against militants on August 20 last year. The first officer in a family that has served the army for three generations,Navdeep succumbed to a bullet injury to his head,after gunning down four heavily-armed militants and rescuing a fellow soldier who had been injured in a grenade explosion. Navdeep,a 5 Maratha Light Infantry officer,is the lone Ashoka Chakra awardee this year. The award will be received by his father,Capt (Honorary) Joginder Singh. As a boy,he would listen with fascination to the stories that his grandfather told about the second world war. He always wanted to join the Army as an officer, says Singh. We were planning to get him engaged as he was due to come home on leave soon. Navdeeps commanding officer,Col G Upadhaya,recalls: An hour before we left for the site after getting intelligence about an infiltration bid,he told me he was tired of waiting. He was raring to go and said he was waiting for a large group of terrorists so that he could give an example to all the waiting militants across the border.
