2/Lt Puneet Nath Datt of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles crossed a compound wall under fire to end a siege in Srinagar on 20 July 1997.
Three storeys at Nowshera
At about 0400 hours on 20 July 1997, troops of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles finished surrounding a three-storey building in the Nowshera area of Srinagar, acting on information about foreign militants inside. Second Lieutenant Puneet Nath Datt led the search. When challenged, the men inside opened fire, and the gunfight ran for nearly three hours with no decisive progress.
Datt then went over the compound wall towards the building. He met a militant trying to escape and shot him at close range. He moved on to the man still firing from the first floor and threw grenades at his position. In the exchange that followed he killed that militant and was himself gravely wounded. He was evacuated to hospital and died of his injuries.
Following his father into the battalion
Datt was born on 29 April 1973 at Jodhpur. His father, Major Pramod Nath Datt, had served in 1/11 Gorkha Rifles. He entered the National Defence Academy in December 1991 and was commissioned into the same battalion on 9 December 1995. He was 24 when he died. His mother, Anita Datt, received the Ashoka Chakra on his behalf. A Press Information Bureau release of August 2001 names his award and Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey's Param Vir Chakra in connection with the battalion's title of Bravest of Brave.
What the citation recorded
Summary, not the official text: the award recorded the search operation of 20 July 1997, when he led his men against militants in a three-storey house. After a gunfight of about three hours he moved in, killed militants at close range and was gravely wounded. He died of his wounds in hospital.