The government has for the first time released the names of six military personnel who were killed in action during Operation Sindoor, India’s retaliatory strikes following the Pahalgam terror attack. Five were from the Indian Army and one from the Indian Air Force; their names will be inscribed on the Tyag Chakra (Circle of Sacrifice) at the National War Memorial in New Delhi.
The six soldiers named are Subedar Major Pawan Kumar, Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar, Agniveer Murali Naik, Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh, and Indian Air Force Sergeant Surendra Kumar. The announcement came alongside a wider release listing all personnel who made the supreme sacrifice during various military operations in 2025.
Operation Sindoor began on May 7, 2025, when India said it struck terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in retaliation for a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 people. The confrontation provoked immediate Pakistani retaliation and escalated into aerial engagements, drone strikes and heavy cross-border shelling. The hostilities lasted four days and ended on May 10, 2025.
The Tyag Chakra at the National War Memorial is dedicated to India’s fallen since Independence. It consists of 16 circular granite walls on which the name, rank and unit of every soldier who died on operations are permanently inscribed; the six names from Operation Sindoor will now be added to those walls.
The operation’s name carried deliberate symbolism. “Sindoor,” the red vermillion traditionally worn by married Hindu women, was chosen to signal retribution for the lives lost and the widowing of families in the Pahalgam attack. Military officials have described the four-day operation as intense and consequential, and the formal naming and memorialisation of these six personnel underscores the government’s effort to publicly recognise their sacrifice.
