Acting Lance Naik Sundar Singh of 4 J&K Infantry, the first Ashoka Chakra recipient from Jammu and Kashmir, is linked to action at Hussainiwala.
Grenades at the Hussainiwala Dam
Published accounts place Sundar Singh at Hussainiwala, near Ferozepore, with the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles. They say Pakistani troops attacked on the night of 18/19 March 1956, were pushed back from the right of the dam, and then fired light machine guns from Bela at its left.
According to those accounts he volunteered to deal with the guns. He took six hand grenades, crawled about 150 metres to rocky ground and threw them at close range. He did this three times, and the unit held the right end of the dam.
Those details come mainly from a comic-book publisher's profile, and one point does not fit. The Defence Ministry's portal records the award under Republic Day 1956, which falls before the March date. Neither has been checked against the Gazette.
Service Number 15103
The portal lists him as Acting Lance Naik, service number 15103, 4 J&K Infantry, the son of Kalyan Singh and Makhan Kaur.
Born on 14 February 1929, he came from Poonch district, and his village is spelled in more than one way. He enrolled in February 1947 and retired as Subedar Major and Honorary Captain. He was the first Ashoka Chakra recipient from Jammu and Kashmir.
He died in his home village on 23 January 2017, aged 87.
What the citation recorded
The official citation could not be read for this article. The Defence Ministry's portal leaves the citation field blank in the archived record. Secondary accounts, which rest largely on one comic-book publisher, say he crawled forward three times with hand grenades against machine guns firing on the dam at Hussainiwala. This is a summary, not the official wording.
Cover image: Robert Prummel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized for this page. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashoka_Chakra_India_De_drie_medailles_van_voor_1967.jpg