NEW DELHI: In a move that will assuage veterans of Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka in the late-1980s, the Army chief will pay homage at National War Memorial on Tuesday to honour the sacrifice of Param Vir Chakra awardee Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran and other soldiers during Operation Pawan.This will be the first official memorial in India of this scale for military personnel who laid down their lives during the operation. NWM doesn’t have any plaque recognising the sacrifice of the army during the tough operation.Gen Upendra Dwivedi and vice chief Lt Gen Pushpendra Singh will lay wreaths at NWM to honour the 1,171 Indian soldiers who died – another 3,500 were wounded – during Operation Pawan.It was India’s first large-scale overseas military operation that began in October 1987 to bring peace by disarming Tamil militant groups like LTTE, but ended on a bitter note with the Sri Lankan govt demanding IPKF’s withdrawal in early-1990.IPKF veterans have for a long time been demanding official designation of a day to remember Operation Pawan on the lines of commemoration of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and the 1999 Kargil conflict. IPKF received numerous gallantry medals – which included the PVC for Maj Parameswaran, who died on Nov 25 in 1987 – and 98 Vir Chakras.“While Sri Lanka built a memorial for IPKF in Colombo, there has been no formal day of commemoration in India so far to honour those soldiers. A group of IPKF veterans, widows and families quietly gather at the NWM every year to pay homage, but they are essentially private ceremonies,” an IPKF veteran said.Army vice chief Lt-Gen Singh, who was commissioned into 4 Para-Special Forces in Dec 1987, incidentally was seriously injured as a young second-lieutenant in a firefight between his unit deployed under IPKF and LTTE in July 1989.“The gesture reflects the Army’s collective respect for the bravehearts and reinforces the enduring bond between serving personnel, veterans and families of the fallen, united in remembering those who gave their today for the nation’s tomorrow,” an officer said.
