January 4, 1999
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Heroes,
Villains and Zeroes '98 GALLANTRY Unmindful of the risk to their lives or their own comfort these men surpassed Himalayan odds to perform their duty
Heroes, they say, stand tall. At 6'3'', Flight Lieutenant A.A. Habelkar scarcely has a choice. There he was on the morning of August 25 in the crew room at the army base camp in Dharchula, Uttar Pradesh. Outside, it was pouring. The command came at noon. Habelkar was airborne in a jiffy. His mission: to airlift 200 corpses, the remains of pilgrims crushed under the avalanche that struck Malpa in the Kumaon hills. The Chetak navigated a zig zag route amid menacing clouds. A second's error would land man and machine into the swirling waters of the Kali, 1,000 ft below. The "helipad" was a 5 m x 4 m piece of clearing where Habelkar and his commanding officer, Wing Cdr Sunil Bijlani, landed their chopper to begin Operation Snow Tiger. What they encountered was piles of putrefying bodies. For nine days those magnificent men in their flying machines flew back and forth, nine days in which Habelkar aged a lifetime: "Nothing in the world can train you for such sights." Or such courage. At least Habelkar is paid for his nerves of steel. On November 26, at the site of the year's worst train accident near Khanna in Punjab (220 dead, 300 injured), Dalip Singh, Braham Dev, Avtar Ali and Charanjit Singh got no more than the excited cry of "Jo bole so nihal". They had just waged a 13-hour battle to extricate life, or what remained of it, from crumpled bogies. The Sealdah Express and the Frontier Mail had collided at 3.00 a.m. They began by pulling out bodies. Then they heard a muffled cry, a desperate plea from inside an upturned bogey. Mechanic Dalip and blacksmith Charanjit ripped apart the cathedral of steel. They returned home at midnight, their hands bleeding. Dev had to be fed by his wife that night, but he probably preferred that to a state banquet.
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Like Dev, Jagdish Prasad too was just another
faceless Indian. Now he's Delhi Police's role model -- literally. A little past 4 p.m. on
November 15, Prasad was patrolling his beat when he heard cries of "Chor chor,
pakdo (Thieves, catch them)." Four criminals were pulling away in their Maruti
after robbing a milk firm of Rs 17 lakh. The constable chased them in an autorickshaw,
ducking bullets en route. Then the gunfight began. Prasad shot one, Birjoo, a rogue wanted
for 52 crimes. Prasad won instant promotion to the rank of head constable. The real reward
was the fulfillment of a boyhood dream. In his little village in Mathura he used to stare
at uniformed men in awe. Now little boys look at him in awe.
