Vir Chakra (VrC)

Left Shoulder located at an altitude of 21,000 feet was occupied by an adversary in April 1987. The position dominated our posts by o bservation and fire, which made our defences untenable and interfered with our logistic maintenance. A unit of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry was assigned the task of taking over this post. On the night of 24/25 June 1987, the assault force negotiated the icewall with the help of ropes and reached an area 200 metres from the adversary's post. From here onwards, the move became extremely difficult due to heavy fire. Havildar Balwant Singh was ordered to move stealthily towards the adversary's bunker. With daredevil courage, he crawled up to the bunker under intense artillery and small arms fire in broad daylight and lobbed grenades into the bunker through a hole and destroyed the adversary's troops. This enabling the remainder of the assault team to close on the objective. This action ofHavildar Balwant Singh contributed directly to the capture of the top ofLeft Shoulder

Havildar Balwant Singh thus displayed conspicuous gallantry in the presence of adversary