Mandeep Singh, SM

Biography

Naib Subedar Mandeep Singh hailed from Seel village in the Patiala district of Punjab. He enlisted in December 1997 at the age of seventeen and was inducted into the 3 Medium Regiment of the Regiment of Artillery; by 2020 he had completed more than two decades of service and risen to the rank of Naib Subedar. 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 Mandeep Singh was awarded the Sena Medal on 26 January 2021.