Pathankot braveheart who remains unsung

Amit R Joshi

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 24

With four bullets and two splinters pumped into his stomach, Shailabh Gaur continued to fight terrorists for over an hour during the Pathankot Air Force station attack till he fell unconscious. The Garud commando's heroic deed during the January 2 strike has remained relatively unsung as the braveheart was confined to Military Hospital post-operation.

Shailabh, his colleague Gursewak Singh--also from Ambala who was martyred in the counter-offensive--and other commandos were the first to exchange fire with the terrorists around 3 am.

Speaking to The Tribune at his Ambala residence, Shailabh recounts how the terrorists, armed to the teeth, sprayed and set afire a powder to create a sort of fire barrier between them and the Indian forces. The Garud commandos were shifted from Adampur to Pathankot the previous evening following a terror alert. "We started a search at the airbase after thermal imagers of helicopters reported some suspicious movements. The next we found was that barbed wire near temporary structures at the airbase had been snapped. By this point, we were sure of intrusions. Hardly had a minute passed that the terrorists targeted us with a flurry of bullets from AK-47s," he says. 

While the Pakistani intruders hid behind pillars, Shailabh and his colleagues took cover behind a JCB machine. Gursewak was the first to be hit, on his right thigh and chest. Shailabh says as he moved towards Gursewak to help him out, he too suffered bullet injuries. He checked Gursewak and found that he was no more. Vomiting blood and unmindful of his injuries, Shailabh tried to enter a building where the terrorists had taken shelter. He says the attackers again sprayed the "fiery powder" to put up a defence.

Shailabh says the terrorists, clad in Indian Army fatigue, a phenomenon that created confusion, kept on firing at short intervals and even lobbed grenades in between. The commando says his senior, stationed at a dominating positioned, provided him cover as he entered the building.  He says  he last remembers seeing a terrified family of a securityman holed up inside the building as he lay injured on the floor. 

Shailabh says he passed out due to excessive blood loss, which was narrated to him by his colleagues who shifted him to the Military Hospital around 7 am. Doctors there told him that his intestine was ruptured due to multiple bullet injuries. 

The braveheart has been recuperating since — first at the hospital and then at his Ambala residence.