WW-II veteran passes away

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 13

Brigadier Raghubir Singh, who was decorated with the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) for gallantry in the 1965 Indo-Pak war, passed away at the age of 99 in Rajasthan today.

The Rajputana Rifles battalion that he had commanded played a key role in the battle of Asal Uttar in the western sector during the war.

Commissioned in April 1943 as Second Lieutenant in the Hazari Guards of the erstwhile state forces of Jaipur, he participated in the Burma campaign of the Second World War, 1947-48 Kashmir operations after Independence and the 1971 Bangladesh liberation campaign.

In 1965, then Lieutenant Colonel Raghubir Singh was commanding 18 Rajputana Rifles (later 11 Mechanised Infantry) in the Khem Karan Sector in Punjab.

During the Korean War in 1954, he was posted as Chairman of the Neutral Nations Representative Commission (NNRC) as part of the peace keeping force and the 1958-59 Israel-Egypt war, he was served with the United Nations Emergency Force.

During the 1971 Indo-Pak War, he was posted as the Provost Marshal in the Military Police, where his responsibilities included handling over 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war in various camps.

His family belonged to a martial clan of Rajasthan. Fondly addressed as “Dadosa”, he is survived by his son Maj Sangram Singh Rajawat (Retd).