Tributes paid to Indian Air Force’s sole Param Vir Chakra recipient Flt Lt Nirmaljeet Singh Sekhon

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 4

Tributes were paid to Flt Lt Nirmaljeet Singh Sekhon, IAF’s sole Param Vir Chakra recipient, as his coursemates got together for a reunion here today.

Also read: Courage over Srinagar: Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon

For the veterans of the 97th Pilot’s and 36th Navigator’s Courses that were commissioned in 1967, it was a memorable trip down memory lane as they got together with their wives and relived the old days in uniform.

Flt Lt Sekhon was posthumously decorated with the nation’s highest gallantry award for taking on four intruding Pakistani Sabre jets over Srinagar in the 1971 war.

The course had 168 pilots and 27 navigators along with three foreign officers, two from Yemen and one from Nigeria. Two course members made it to the highest level of the IAF, becoming Air Officers Commanding-in-Chief, while another veteran, Air Vice Marshal JS Grewal, commanded No. 102 Squadron, the only unit to have operated the trisonic Mig-25 Foxbat high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that had a top speed of over Mach 3.

Among the attendees was Kuruvilla who had become a prisoner of war during the 1971 war and had escaped from Pakistan after a trying ordeal.

Shyam Sunder came all the way from Auckland in New Zealand despite undergoing medical treatment, while another couple, Kauls, came from Gandhinagar with the lady in a wheelchair.

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