GOC-in-C, Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh (left) interacts with gallantry award recipients during the triennial convention.
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 5
The Army is renaming important landmarks in military stations after the names of gallantry award winners of the armed forces to give them due recognition and inspire the present generation.Lt Gen KJ Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, stated this while addressing participants at the silver jubilee convention of the War Decorated India (WDI). He said many residential colonies, office complex entrances and important structures had names that had little or no relevance with India’s contemporary military history.The Western Command, he said, was associating such landmarks with war heroes who had set professional standards for others to look up to. The WDI is an association of Param Vir Chakra (PVC), Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) and Vir Chakra (VrC) recipients and is engaged in looking after the welfare of the soldiers decorated for gallantry in war or their next of kin. Over a 100 gallantry awardees, many of them now in their sunset years, their widows or survivors from various parts of the country attended the convention. They were also honoured on the occasion.Prominent among the attendees were Wg Cdr Jagmohan Nath, the only survivor among six officers decorated with the MVC twice.
War heroes, kin divided over Indo-Pak tie
PANCHKULA: War heroes stand divided over whether India should play the World T20 cricket match with Pakistan on its territory. So are their kin.
GL Batra, father of Captain Vikram Batra who won the Param Vir Chakra (PVC) posthumously in the Kargil war, said the match should not be held as “Pakistan was waging a proxy war in Kashmir”.
“It’s my personal opinion that no matches with Pakistan should take place anywhere in India,” GL Batra told HT during the silver jubilee function of ‘The War Decorated India’ in Panchkula on Saturday.
“Recently, the Pathankot attack took place. We shouldn’t be so humble. But is it humbleness or weakness?” he said.
Uncertainty looms large over the cricket match scheduled for March 19 at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, with many, including chief minister Virbhadra Singh, urging the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), to cancel it.
Virbhadra said the match should not be held, “at least in Dharamshala”, as many soldiers from Himachal Pradesh had “sacrificed their lives” during terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.
At the event in Panchkula, Dhanno, wife of 1971 Param Vir Chakra (PVC) awardee, Colonel Hoshiar Singh, also said the match should be cancelled.
“They are sending terrorists here. We shouldn’t allow them to play here,” she said.
However, Jameel Alam, grandson of PVC awardee Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid, differed. “Cricket is a game. Everyone loves to see India playing a cricket match. India should play Pakistan and defeat it,” he said. Abdul Hamid had got PVC posthumously for his bravery in 1965 Indo-Pak war in Khemkaran sector.
Jameel found support in Air Vice Marshal Bhupendra Kumar Bishnoi (retd), who insisted sports had nothing to do with politics. “I personally feel we should play,” he said. Bishnoi was awarded with Vir Chakra for both 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars.
Wing Commander Vinod Nebb (retd), who was also awarded the Vir Chakra in 1965 and 1971 wars, said the opposition to the match had nothing against the people of Pakistan. “My point is people in both countries are good but their masters are not,” Nebb said, “We have to recognise their masters and deal with them. If they carry out a terrorist attack, you have to respond back in 24 hours without delay,” he added.
