K Palani, VrC

Biography

Havildar K Palani was born on 3 June 1980 in Kadukkalaur village in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu. An active sportsman in his school years, he enlisted in the Army on 29 April 1999 at the age of eighteen and completed his graduation through distance education while in service; by 2020 he had served for about twenty-two years and was fighting alongside the 16 Bihar Battalion at Galwan. During June 2020 the unit was deployed near the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh as part of Operation Snow Leopard, as tensions rose over the Galwan Valley along the route to Daulat Beg Oldie. On the night of 15 June 2020 the commanding officer of the 16 Bihar Battalion, Colonel Santosh Babu, led talks to defuse the standoff, but these turned into a brutal hand-to-hand clash as Chinese troops attacked with iron rods and clubs. In the fighting that raged for several hours along the freezing river, he and nineteen other soldiers laid down their lives for the nation. For his outstanding grit, devotion to duty and supreme sacrifice, Havildar K Palani was awarded the Vir Chakra on 26 January 2021.