Satnam Singh, SM

Biography

Naib Subedar Satnam Singh hailed from Bhojraj village in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab, born on 18 January 1979. Following his elder brother into uniform, he enlisted on 21 August 1995 at the age of seventeen and was inducted into the Regiment of Artillery; by 2020 he had served for over twenty-four years and was deployed with the 3 Medium Regiment 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 exceptional courage, devotion to duty and supreme sacrifice, Naib Subedar Satnam Singh was awarded the Sena Medal on 26 January 2021.