HYDERABAD: A 37-year-old former NSG commando, Kanagala Sriramulu, is unable to walk, talk freely or perform anything on his own. He suffers from a short-term memory loss too. Last year’s terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in Punjab had crippled Sriramulu, who was an expert in defusing grenades with the bomb disposal unit of National Security Guard(NSG). After a year and a half of treatment, Sriramulu has recently moved to Hyderabad to join the 14 Engineers Regiment at Secunderabad as Naik. Around 15 shrapnels had pierced his body when a grenade went off during combing operations after four terrorists were shot down by the NSG commandos on January 3, 2016.
His commanding officer Lt Col EK Niranjan was killed while sanitising a terrorist’s booby-trapped body. Injured Sriramulu went into coma for a few days. But when he came out of it, his right hand, right leg and right eye were nonfunctioning. “Even with the best of treatment, I am unable to talk or walk properly. My life has been crippled badly and I feel my country has already forgotten me,” Sriramulu, who joined the Indian Army 17 years ago, told Express. Recalling the ill-fated day, Sriramulu said the NSG team of 75 commandos reached the Pathankot Air Force base by 10 pm on January 2.
As many as four terrorists were neutralised after a fierce gunbattle. “As members of BDU, we were supposed to sanitise the bodies as there could be booby-traps. I identified three highly- intensive grenades from the jackets of dead terrorists and defused them. When I retrieved the fourth grenade and was explaining it to my commanding officer, it went off,” said Sriramulu, recalling the moments that changed his life forever.
Apart from the medical assistance, he said, the NSG paid his family a paltry sum of `2 lakh. Though he now receives a monthly salary from the Army, his family has been striving hard to make both ends meet. His family received financial support from Laxmi Charitable Trust chairman T Prasad Rao. Rao said they would meet chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and request him to put in a word with the Centre to expedite the process of providing financial assistance to the soldier’s family.