Subedar Belliappa KP

Subedar Belliappa KP was born on 5th March 1959 at Periyapatna in Mysore district of Karnataka. He completed his schooling at his native place Periyapatna and got his BSc degree from Yuvaraj college at Mysore. Since his younger days, Sub Belliappa had a desire to join the army, which got strengthened further, when  he joined National Cadet Corps (NCC) while studying in class X.

Consequently following his desire, he joined the army at the age of 22 years on 13th November 1980. He was inducted into the Army Medical Corps, the corps which provides medical services to the army during peace as well as war. After he completed his training at Pune, his first assignment was in Jammu & Kashmir. Subsequently Sub Belliappa served in various operational areas in Nagaland, Punjab, Srinagar and Sikkim.

After serving for few years he got married to Kavitha and the couple had two sons Bhuvan and Tejasvi. Later he got promoted and became a junior commissioned officer. By that time he had developed into a dedicated soldier who commanded respect for his professional as well as soldierly skills. He earned various service medals during this period which included Sainya Seva medal with clasp J&K, special service medal with clasp Suraksha and 20 years LSM.

Operation Falcon: 04 Aug 2002

During 2002, Sub Belliappa was serving with the unit deployed in the North East in an insurgency prone area as part of Operation Falcon. On the 04 August 2002,  Sub Belliappa was given an operational task which required him to move to Guwahati by road. Though it was inclement weather, Sub Belliappa set off in a convoy along with his superior officer. The road was rain soaked, hilly, narrow and treacherous which passed through Tenga valley. While crossing over a bridge in  the Tenga valley, Sub Belliappa’s convoy got hit by flash floods. The bridge got broken and the vehicles got hit by gushing waters.

Sub Belliappa in a show of rare courage and determination swung into action and managed to rescue his superior officer and other comrades. However while doing so, his own vehicle and the driver got swept away.  Sub Belliappa could not pull himself  up and got swept away in the floods.  Sub Belliappa rising to the occasion, displayed grit, resoluteness, devotion to duty and camaraderie during the rescue operation and made the supreme sacrifice in the line of his duty.

Sub Belliappa KP is survived by his wife Smt Kavitha and two sons Bhuvan and Tejasvi.