MAJOR MOHIT SHARMA-AN EXTRAORDINARY SOLDIER

 

Yesterday, it was by sheer chance I saw the trailer of “DHURANDHAR”. In that it was mentioned that the story is based on real life incidents. I just wanted to check if that is true and what I found on that is real exciting stuff.

Till now, we have only seen in movies about Indian agents participating in covert operations in other countries impersonating as someone else. I always overruled it as a bit of fantasy rather than reality. But the life of Mohit Sharma completely changed that view.

Mohit Sharma was born at Rohtak in Haryana in the year 1978. His parents later shifted to Delhi  where he studied and he completed his school studies in the Delhi Public School, Ghaziabad till 12^th standard in 1995. Mohit was very good at playing the guitar, mouth organ and the synthesiser accompanied by which he sang songs of Hemant Kumar.

He got admitted to an Engineering college in Maharashtra, but he had a passion to join the services so he left it and joined the NDA in 1995 itself. During his NDA tenure, he excelled in many fields. He was a champion horse rider, a boxing champion in the featherweight category and was also one of the top swimmers. While in the IMA, he was one of the best cadets and had an opportunity to interact with KR Narayanan who was then the President of India.

He passed out from IMA in Dec 1999 and was allotted to the Madras Regiment and was posted at Hyderabad. From there he went to serve with 38 Rashtriya Rifles in Kashmir as a part of counter insurgency operation where he won his first gallantry medal in the year 2002.

Then he served as a para commando which was an elite force in the army in 2003 in Kashmir. He was involved in many counter insurgency operations in Kashmir which involved in infiltrating militant outfits for intelligence under secret identities. In one such operation he infiltrated the Hijbul Mujahideen under the identity of Iftikhar Bhat while keeping a heavy beard and dressing as a local for his cover. During the operation he gathered intelligence on Hizbul Mujahideen and has also assassinated 2 high ranking members of the group. There he received his 2^nd gallantry award in 2004. He later served as an instructor of Commando training at Bangalore till 2006.

In the year 2009 his unit was deployed in the Kupwara district of Kashmir and was engaged in the operations against terrorists on a continuous basis. Based on intelligence about an infiltration attempt by terrorists, his unit launched an operation to flush them out. He was tasked with heading the Bravo assault team against terrorists in the dense Haphruda forest. By that time he was already respected as a fearless soldier with great tactical acumen by his colleagues and had spent more than 4 years in Kashmir.  

His team was ambushed by militants who rained fire on it from 3 directions. The fire left 4 immediately critically wounded in the initial burst. In sheer bravery, major Mohit disregarded the continuing fire crawled and rescued 2 of the 4 wounded soldiers, which made his team fight with renewed resolve. The terrorists then started to break up the team. Mohit realised that he advanced under the hail of bullets, lobbed grenades at the enemy and killed 2 terrorists, but in the process he sustained a serious bullet injury on the chest, yet he refused to withdraw and continued directing the assault motivating his commandos to hold their ground and press forward. When the situation worsened and the terrorists were winning, he surged ahead regardless of his life and I absolute bravery he eliminated 2 more terrorists before succumbing to his injuries.  He was just 31 years old when he died.

For his act of sheer bravery and valour Major Mohit Sharma received the Ashok Chakra posthumously on 26^th January 2010. His wife Major Rishima Sharma (nee Sarin) received the award from the President. She is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Service Corps. She is the daughter of retired Colonel Mohanlal Sarin of the same Corps. Her brother also serves in the artillery as a Colonel. She comes from the Gurdaspur district in the Punjab. She was the first woman officer to serve as an Agniveer recruiter in 2023. The couple had 2 children.

It is rather ironic that after such a brave soldier’s death, his parents have criticised the NOK law f the Services which completely side lines the parents and grants full rights to his widow. His parents have taken this to the Supreme Court and tried to tarnish Risihma Sharmas name.

The parents also went to the court to stop screening of the film “Dhurandhar” but the SC ruled that the film is not based on Mohit Sharma’s life which is why it is released now. A man who most gloriously died for the country had the misfortune of being the centre of such controversy created by his own parents which is very unfortunate indeed.