Maj Harminder Pal Singh, a 6 foot 2 inch lad from Ropar had been wounded in the left arm but had recovered to engage three militants armed with Kalashnikovs and grenades in an eye ball-to-eye ball encounter in a remote North Kashmir village on April 13.

Singh was shot through the temple by the third militant but not before the wounded officer of the 18 Grenadiers had gunned down two militants. The officer leading the commando platoon of his battalion, Singh led what the Army here described as a ``daredevil'' operation in a congested locality of Sadurkotbala village of the Manasbal area of Kashmir.

``The officer was a brave man who led from the frontand shot two militants himself. The operation was very difficult as the soldiers had to expose themselves in the built-up area to prevent any collateral damage to civilian houses and life,'' said Lt Gen Krishan Pal, Commander, 15 Corps.

It all started when Singh's commando platoon of 32 men surrounded 12 houses at 1 pm in the Khan mohalla of Sadurkot on the tip-off about the presence of four Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants. When the commandoes surrounded the houses, the presence of the militants was confirmed by the visage of the villagers.

``But the question was which of the houses were the militants in, who could easily jump houses and roofs in the congested locality. Visibility was low because an intense dust storm was swirling through the village,'' said Havildar Vishnu Prasad, who was Singh's commando buddy pair.

Singh was the first to enter the houses. ``He was an officer who ate with his men and played cards with them. Our morale used to shoot up because he was always in the forefront wheneverdanger was around,'' recalls Grenadier Satpal, who was wounded in the back by a grenade blast.

Five houses had been searched without encountering the militants and Singh and five commandoes were approaching the next houses through an alley. It was then that militants opened fire with AK rifles through a ground floor window at a distance of 15 yards. The bullets struck Singh in the left arm. ``He faltered and fell but recovered on his feet and took cover behind a rock,'' recalls Hav Vishnu.

Lt Gen Pal was to comment later, ``Singh's action is significant on this occasion of the tercentenary celebrations. He has upheld the spirit of Guru Gobind Singh and rose to fight evil. Sikh troops are amongst the most gallant and have repeatedly proven themselves.''

A militant poking his head out of the window on the second floor of the house came tumbling down, shot through the head by Singh's AK rifle. Another one died when the wounded officer managed to lob a grenade through the ground-floor window with his righthand and followed it up with a burst from his automatic rifle.

Crawling to cut off the escape of the third militant from the house's main entrance, disaster struck Singh when his bullet-proof helmet slipped off. The surviving militant shot him dead through the temple.

The Grenadiers revere Singh as a `sant-sipahi' and his loss makes a tough Haryanvi Jat like Hav Vishnu misty-eyed. ``Our welfare was uppermost in his mind and he even left drinking after his marriage in 1997,'' recalls Hav Vishnu. Perhaps valour ran through his blood for his father, Harpal Singh, retired as a Captain from the Indian Army. Perhaps the proximity of his native Ropar from Anandpur Sahib, a mere 30-minute drive, inspired him. He left behind his wife, Rupinder Pal Kaur, cradling a three-month-old son, Navteshwar.