J&K: Army jawan lays down his life after killing 10 terrorists in 11 days

Creating a unique history of valour and dedication to duty, one of the Special Forces Commandos of the Indian Army, Lance Naik Mohan Nath Goswami, killed ten terrorists in a short span of 11 days before making supreme sacrifice in continued fight against terror in Kashmir Valley on Thursday.

Lance Naik Goswami was killed at Hafruda forests in Kupwara district in fierce fire fight with terrorists, but not before the elimination of four of them. “A true soldier, he breathed his last in action,’’ said a defence ministry spokesperson Colonel S D Goswami at the Northern Command headquarters in Udhampur. Hailing from Indira Nagar village in Haldwani tehsil of Nainital, he is survived by his wife and a seven-year-old daughter.

Part of numerous successful counter terrorist operations in the state, Lance Naik Goswami had been actively involved in three such operations in which ten terrorists were killed and one captured alive in the last 11 days.

Giving details, the spokesperson said that in the first operation, three Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists hailing from Pakistan were killed in Khurmur, Handwara on August 23.

He again volunteered for a second back-to-back operation in which three more Lashkar terrorists were killed and another Sajjad Ahmad alias Abu Ubed Ullah captured alive during the two day-long fierce fire fight in Rafiabad after a fierce fire fight on August 26-27. The apprehension of Sajjad Ahmad alias Abu Ubed Ullah, a resident of Muzzafargarh, proved to be a shot in the arm to establish Pakistan’s complicity in abetting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the defence ministry spokesperson said.

Lance Naik Goswami, once again, volunteered to be part of an ongoing operation launched in the dense Hafruda forest near Kupwara, Kashmir. This proved to be his last operation but not before elimination of four terrorists in a heavy gun battle, the spokesperson pointed out.

He had volunteers to join Indian Army’s elite para commandos unit in 2002 and “went on to gain the reputation of being one of the toughest soldiers of his unit, no small feat in an outfit that boasts of being one among the best in the world’’, the spokesperson said. His mortal remains were flown by an IAF aircraft to Bareilly, from where they will be taken by an Army helicopter to Pant Nagar and onward to his native place where he will be cremated with full military honours, he added.