Ashok Chakra

The day - 26th Jan 1998
The Venue- Rashtrapathi Bhavan- New Delhi
"On this day of year 1998, late Major Uttaya of the Mechanised Infantry recieved the Ashok Chakra, from the President of India K. R. Narayanan, for gallantry beyond the call of duty towards his country, regiment and people. "
His wife Mrs Usha Uttaya accepted the award. The Major was 34 when he died. Officials stories say that he died in an ambush on the North West border of India.
After the ceremony, Usha returned back to Bangalore, and took up a job as a teacher. The army had looked after her. She had got money, and plot of land in Bangalore. She needed to make sure that she kept herself busy.
Three months later she recieved a letter, with many stamps on it. It was a letter written in Hindi, by one of his colleagues, who refused to give his name, but he recounted the account of the death of Major Uttaya.
Major Uttaya had joined the National Defence Academy and had shown both leadership skills and a very matured understanding of the human behaviour. He was being watched, by the seniors and when he graduated from the IMA, was recruited into the Special Task Force, working with the Central Bureau of Investigation. He was to slowly infiltrate a group of soldiers who were working as spies for the enemy. It took him 7 years, to peice together the whole puzzle.
There were four of them, Subedar Major Yashpal Yadav, Subedar Major Vikas Chavan, Lance Nayak Atul Bhist and Lance Nayak Arun Bhasin. There was one thing in common, all were poor, so easy to recruit, and had large families to support. All they needed to do was give the enemy strategic intelligence information in return for hard cash. This had been going on for many years, and after some major losses to the Indian side, the army top bosses felt the need to get to the bottom of this. Major Uttaya was recruited for this purpose, found them, and then slowly started getting dossiers on them ready. Unfortunately for him the enemy intelligence found out about him, and tipped off the four men.
They pretended to be chasing the enemy at an imaginary incursion near the border, and he went along, they went deep into the forest and there at night they shot him, unfortunately for all four, Major Uttaya was wearing a bullet proof vest, so the first burst of machine gun did not kill him, but when he realised he was going to die, he picked up his gun and shot Yadav and Chavan in the head, on seeing his comerades dying Bhist got so incensed he emptied the entire machine gun's bullets on Major Uttaya, shooting first his legs, and then his right arm. Major Uttaya took his pistol and shot Bhist through his neck, killing him slowly, choking to death. Bhasin had frozen, turned his gun on Uttaya, he let out two bursts from his machine gun, killing Major Uttaya on the spot, but not before the Major had shot him on his knees, and his jaw. Bhasin was found four hours later, by the rest of the battalion, bleeding. He was in coma for about 3 months. He left the army and went back to his village in Gurdaspur. He still lives there with his wife and six kids.

The question Usha keeps asking herself , was this letter written by Lance Nayak Arun Bhasin? She would never know.