Havildar Vijay Kumar Shukla

Havildar Vijay Kumar Shukla hailed from Porsa village of Murena district in Madhya Pradesh. He was recruited into the 131 AD  Regiment of the Corps of Army Air Defence,  an arm of the Indian Army tasked with the air defence of the country from foreign threats. After serving for some time, he got married to Ms Manorama and the couple was blessed with a daughter Yashi Shukla. After serving for few years with his parent unit, he was deputed to serve with 51 RR unit, deployed in J & K for counter-insurgency operations. 

During Jan 2017, Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla's unit was deployed in the Gurez sector of North Kashmir along the LOC. The AOR(Area of Responsibility) of the unit spanned over remote rugged mountainous terrain with extreme weather conditions, especially in the winter season. The troops were deployed on various forward posts and often undertook patrol to monitor the area in between the manned posts. Also, heavy snowfall often blocked the roads and hampered the movement of troops which necessitated frequent clearance operations. On 25 Jan 2017, a horrific avalanche struck 51 RR battalion Army camp, which took Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla and many of his comrades off guard. The avalanche hit the post at Neeru village located in the Tulail area, 25 km away from Gurez town in North Kashmir. The place located along the LOC normally remained cut off by road in winter. The avalanche hit the area a few hundred meters away from the HQs of 51 RR unit and trapped the soldiers, who were on patrol.

The soldiers invariably faced extreme risks in manning the inhospitable terrain under extreme weather conditions. Avalanches usually took place due to the accumulation of snow and were triggered by morning sunlight. In other cases, when the slope of accumulated snow was between 60 to 80 degrees, the instability led to an avalanche. Although the Army had a unit of the Snow Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Jammu and Kashmir, with several observatories at various locations to issue warnings and alerts to the Army formations and units, it could not detect this avalanche. The magnitude and suddenness of the avalanche did not give any time to Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla and other soldiers of the 51 RR battalion to take any defensive measures.  As a result, the soldiers got buried under tons of snow and it was very difficult to locate them. 

A massive rescue operation was launched by the Army which continued for several hours to locate and rescue the trapped soldiers. The teams of Army undertook rescue operations under extreme weather conditions but could not save the lives of Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla and thirteen other soldiers. Besides Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla, the other martyred brave-hearts included Nb Sub Aram Singh Gurjar, Naik Ajit Singh, Sep Samundare Vikas, Sep Sanju Suresh Khandare, Sep Anand Gawai, Sep Sandeep Kumar D P, Sep Sunil Patel, Sep Nagaraju Mamidi, Sep Devender Kumar Soni, Sep Elaverson B, Sep Azad Singh, Sep Sundara Pandi, and Craftsman Ankur Singh. Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla was a valiant soldier who laid down his life in the line of his duty.

Hav Vijay Kumar Shukla is Survived by his wife Smt Manorama and daughter Yashi Shukla.