Classmates of an army officer from Maharashtra, who laid down his life battling militants near the Line of Control in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district last year, have sent 400 packets of sweets to soldiers in his unit.
Colonel Santosh Mahadik, the Commanding Officer of 41 Rashtriya Rifles, was critically injured during the operation in the Haji Naka forest area of Kupwara near the LoC in Kashmir in November and succumbed to his injuries at a hospital later.
“The mithai boxes, weighing just over 300 kg, landed at Srinagar airport and are being sent to the 41 Rashtriya Rifles, for distribution among the soldiers the martyr once commanded,” a classmate of Mahadik, involved in this initiative, said.
Col Mahadik was a student of Sainik School, Satara.
“This Diwali, we thought of his comrades in arms, who suffer harsh climes and the enemy from across the border, as well as some within. We thought this would be a nice gesture for soldiers, who spend Diwali away from their families,” he said.
An officer from the elite 21 Para-Special Forces unit, Col Mahadik was awarded a Sena Medal for gallantry during Operation Rhino in the North-East in 2003.
Mahadik’s wife Swati last month joined the Officers Training Academy in Chennai as part of the SSCW (Non-tech) course for 11 months’ training before she joins the army as a lieutenant.
An ace football goalkeeper, a skilled horse-rider and a passionate boxer, Mahadik was an all-rounder, his friends recall.
Despite the inhospitable terrain that made the Kupwara operation immensely challenging, the colonel particularly chose to lead his battalion.
Mahadik’s classmates, including Manish Manidergi, Giridhar Kole, Deepak Patil and Shashikant Waghmode, have launched the initiative which they are calling ‘Operation Diwali’.
Waghmode said, “I, along with my wife, was in his regiment just before Diwali last year and she carried Diwali sweets for him. We miss him this Diwali.”
“I was with him since childhood and college,” he added.
Image: Officers and jawans of the 41 RR pay their tributes to Colonel Santosh Mahadik. Photograph: PTI Photo
