Major General Gagandeep Bakshi (SM, VSM), or G. D. Bakshi, is a retired Indian army officer. He is from the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles. GaganDeep Bakshi A veteran of many skirmishes on the Line of Control and of counter-terrorist operations inJammu and Kashmir and Punjab, he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for commanding a battalion in operations in Kargil.
Here are few inspiring facts about Major General Gagandeep Bakshi sir:
- GaganDeep Bakshi is the younger brother of Captain Raman Bakshi, who was the first martyr in 1965 India-Pakistan War at the young age of 23 years.
- He joined the National Defence Academy in June 1967 (a year and a half after his elder brother was martyred) Though selected as an Airforce Cadet, Bakshi switched to Army to serve in the same unit, where his father and brother had served the Indian Army.
- He graduated from the Indian Military Academy on 14 November 1971, Bakshi was called into action at the outbreak of hostilities in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
- As a Lt Colonel, he volunteered to be posted at Kaksar in Kargil in 1987, five kilometres from the Line of Control, where a massive intrusion had taken place.
- He volunteered to be posted to Jammu & Kashmir’s toughest counter-terrorism sector, Kishtwar, where he served in the Rashtriya Rifles for 27 months, during which period several top terrorist commanders were eliminated.
- He was posted as Instructor at the Staff College, Wellington, Ooty, a very prestigious posting. He then returned to the Military Operations Directorate in time to plan Operation Vijay (Kargil, 1999), for which he received the Chief’s Commendation Card.
- Before retirement, he taught for two and a half years at the National Defence College, New Delhi from where he was awarded a Phd for his work on limited war in the Indian subcontinent.
