New Delhi: More than a year after Operation Sindoor, the government has for the first time officially disclosed the names of six Indian armed forces personnel killed during the four-day cross-border campaign against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK).
Operation Sindoor was launched in the early hours of May 7, 2025, in response to the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, 2025, in which 26 people – 25 tourists and a local pony operator – were killed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Indian forces struck nine terror-linked sites across Pakistan and POK in a precision strike package that included Rafale and Mirage 2000 fighters. Pakistan retaliated with their own “Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos”, and targeted 15 Indian military installations from Bhuj to Srinagar with drones and missiles, and firing over 500 projectiles on May 8 alone.
A ceasefire was agreed between the directors general of military operations of both countries on May 10, 2025.
The names of the six personnel – five from the Indian Army and one from the Indian Air Force – have been published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website and will be engraved on the memorial’s granite walls in New Delhi. This is the first formal public acknowledgement of fatalities suffered by the Indian armed forces during the operation.
The six are: Subedar Major Pawan Kumar of Headquarters 10 Infantry Brigade; Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Vir Chakra, of 4 Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry; Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar of 5 Field Regiment; Agniveer Mood Murali Naik of 851 Light Regiment (Artillery); Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh of 237 Field Workshop Company; and Sergeant Surendra Kumar, Vayu Medal, of 39 Wing, Indian Air Force.
Among the six, Rifleman Sunil Kumar was posthumously awarded the Vir Chakra, India’s third-highest wartime gallantry award, while Sergeant Surendra Kumar received the Vayu Medal. On June 8, President Droupadi Murmu presented the Vir Chakra posthumously to Sunil Kumar at the Defence Investiture Ceremony; the award was received by his mother, Sudesh Kumari and father Yash Paul.
The National War Memorial’s Tyag Chakra – the Circle of Sacrifice – comprises 16 concentric granite walls, each engraved with the names, ranks, and regiments of personnel who have fallen in service since Independence. The names of the six have been engraved on Wall 3D of the memorial in the dedicated 2025 section. The memorial was inaugurated in 2019 near India Gate.