A proud moment for Hyderabad! On March 20 among the Sena Medal recipients at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan was a Hyderabad soldier. A fact unknown to most of the city is that this soldier was a part of the surgical strike that was carried out against Pakistan on September 28, 2016.
Even a bigger shock is that the family of Major Lakshmi Veera Naresh Olety too had no idea about the soldier’s part in the surgical strike that was carried on terrorist bases in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir(PoK.)
A.S.R. Murthy, uncle of the young soldier said, “I got goosebumps when he told us. When we asked him if (he) was afraid, he said that all of us have fear, but it was his Army training that helped him overcome it. And when the country reposed confidence in you, fear take (sic) a back seat.”
The soldier had joined the National Defense Academy, by his father’s encouragement to get into the army. Regional Sainik Welfare Officer N. Sreenesh Kumar had said that Naresh has remained as humble as he was before joining the army.
All the Sena medal recipients were promised an amount of Rs. 30 lakh by the Telangana government and Rs. 10 lakhs by the Andhra Pradesh government, the Sainik welfare director Colonel P. Ramesh Kumar had said that they were still waiting for official documents from the army headquarters and that funds will be dispersed as soon as the documents are produced.
