Chander Choudhary

Biography

Captain Chander Choudhary Sihag hailed from Beegawas Ramsara village in the Dungargarh tehsil of Bikaner district, Rajasthan, and was born on 16 October 1971 to Dr K L Sihag and Smt Sundar Devi. He completed his schooling at Our Lady of Nazareth High School, Mumbai, and studied at Mithibai College, Mumbai, before graduating in commerce from Osmania University, Hyderabad, in 1996. After clearing the Combined Defence Services Examination, he joined the Officers' Training Academy, Chennai, and in 1998 was commissioned into 4 Grenadiers of The Grenadiers, an infantry regiment renowned for its gallant soldiers and long history of battle honours. As a young officer, he was posted to his unit deployed in the Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, where the Line of Control remained volatile with frequent ceasefire violations in the aftermath of the Kargil War. This exposed him to field operations early in his career, and he was promoted to Captain in 2000. Having undergone commando training at Belgaum, and owing to his leadership and gallant conduct, he was given command of a Ghatak Platoon specialising in counter-insurgency operations when his battalion moved to Mahore tehsil in Udhampur district in July 2002. On the night of 8/9 September 2002, acting on intelligence about hardcore terrorists hiding in a maize field in Dubri village, Captain Choudhary rushed with his Ghatak Platoon and cordoned off the area. In a well-coordinated engagement his troops killed six terrorists in quick succession. When a surviving terrorist suddenly opened indiscriminate fire from behind a boulder, Captain Choudhary retaliated swiftly and eliminated him, but was himself gravely wounded by gunshots. He succumbed to his injuries while being evacuated by air, displaying exceptional courage and an unyielding fighting spirit to the last.