Colonel Santosh Mahadik, SC, SM was the Commanding Officer of 41 Rashtriya Rifles when he died fighting terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir. He was taking part in an operation that started on November 13, 2015 to flush out terrorists, suspected to be from Lashkar-e-Taiba, hiding in the dense forest of Haji Naka in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district. The militants had fled deep into the forests and the security forces continued to chase them. The encounter against the four terrorists had been on for a week in the Manigah forest area of border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir,when he was shot and grievously wounded on November 17, 2015 and later died in hospital on the same day.