Bipul Roy, SM

Biography

Havildar Bipul Roy was born on 2 March 1986 in Bindipara village in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal. He enlisted in 2005 at the age of nineteen, joining the Corps of Signals — the communications backbone of the armed forces — and by 2020 had completed about fifteen years of service, deployed with the 81 Mountain Brigade Signal 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 courage, steadfast devotion to duty and supreme sacrifice, Havildar Bipul Roy was awarded the Sena Medal on 26 January 2021.