Capt Gurjinder Singh 

Gurjinder Singh was born into a soldiers’ family at Ambala on July 4, 1974. His grandfather Subedar Gurbaksh Singh had participated in overseas campaigns during World War II and also on mainland India during the wars in 1947-48 and 1962. His father Lt Col TP Singh Suri, a Sikh Light Infantry veteran, took active part in the 1971 war with Pakistan in the Naushera sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

Gurjinder studied in Army Public Schools at military stations wherever his father was posted. He went on to join the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, in July 1993 and was commissioned into Army Ordnance Corps in June 1997. He had opted for Sikh Light Infantry as his parental claim but at that time, due to paucity of vacancies, he could not get the infantry regiment of his choice. Nonetheless, he was destined to be a part of a combat arm in the most glorious period of his Army career. And that combat arm happened to be 12th Battalion of Bihar Regiment, the regiment the hero and role model of which, Birsa Munda, figures on top among freedom fighters from Bihar. Capt Gurjinder Singh Suri, commissioned in Ordnance Corps, while on attachment to 12 Bihar Battalion in their finest innings, did something which made the Ordnance, the logistic arm of the Army and 12 Bihar, the sword arm, proud of this young Khalsa.

During 1999, Capt Gurjinder Singh Suri was attached to 12 Bihar when the battalion was deployed in the Gulmarg sector of Jammu and Kashmir. It was here at Faulad Post situated at a height of 11,200 feet that Captain Suri attained martyrdom by sacrificing his life in the defence of the motherland.

For his conspicuous act of bravery and supreme sacrifice, Capt Gurjinder was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra posthumously. The battle account of his gallant action is available in the War Diary of 12 Bihar. After Captain Gurjinder Suri’s martyrdom, his younger brother Randhir Singh Suri left his lucrative corporate job with a resolve to fill the void. Randhir is today a serving Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army. People at Ambala rightly say that Randhir is not part of the third generation of the Suris in uniform, he carries the legacy in the fourth since he joined the Army after his elder brother’s martyrdom. Capt Suri was the lone recipient of Maha Vir Chakra, the second highest military decoration for gallantry, during the investiture ceremony on August 15, 2000.