Kaustubh Prakash Rane, SM

Biography

Major Kaustubh Prakash Rane was born on 27 February 1989 in the Thane district of Maharashtra. Though his family originally hailed from Sadure village in the Vaibhavwadi taluka of Sindhudurg district, he was raised in the Sheetal Nagar area of Mira Road, Thane. He completed his schooling at Holy Cross Convent High School and later graduated from Shailendra College in Dahisar, on the outskirts of Mumbai. Drawn to the Indian Army since childhood, he cleared the Combined Defence Services examination and joined the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, in 2011. He was commissioned into the 12 Garhwal Rifles and served as a young officer in Kupwara, Jammu & Kashmir, honing his field-craft skills in various operations, before a peace posting in Kolkata as ADC to the GOC Bengal Area. He was later deputed to the 36 Rashtriya Rifles for counter-insurgency operations in Jammu & Kashmir, and by January 2018 had been promoted to Major. In 2018 his unit was deployed in the remote, heavily militarised Gurez Sector of Bandipora district. Around 1 a.m. on 6 August, about eight heavily armed militants attempted to infiltrate Indian territory near the Govind Nala in the Bakhtor area under cover of darkness. Major Rane led his men into action and engaged the intruders in a fierce firefight in which two terrorists were eliminated. Grievously wounded during the exchange, he was evacuated to the 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar but succumbed to his injuries on 7 August 2018, at the age of 29. For his indomitable courage, leadership and supreme sacrifice, he was awarded the Sena Medal (Posthumous).