Exactly 55 years after he attained martyrdom in the 1965 war against Pakistan, a statue to commemorate the memory of Squadron Leader Ajjamada B. Devayya will be installed in Madikeri, on Monday.
The bronze statue, sculpted by Ashok Gudigar from Bidadi, will be installed at an existing circle named after A.B. Devayya close to the old private bus stand in Madikeri.
A.B. Devayya, a native of Kodagu, took part in the IAF operations against Pakistan in the 1965 war and went missing on September 7, 1965, after putting up a valiant fight against the enemy planes.
When it transpired that Devayya did not return after his sortie, he was declared as missing in action and that remained the status for almost 20 years.
Mandetira N. Subramani, founder president of Vekare Ex-servicemen Trust (VKET), an NGO through which he takes up the cause of retired soldiers, said that sometime in 1985 a British writer was commissioned by Pakistan to write the history of 1965 war from their (Pakistan’s) perspective. There was a narrative pertaining to an encounter with an IAF plane on September 7, 1965, based on which military analysts in India concluded that it was the same plane flown by Devayya.
Mr. Subramani, who retired as senior non-commissioned officer of the IAF, said the top brass studied the sequence of events leading to the shooting down of Devayya’s plane and surmised that Devayya had put up a heroic fight and shot down the enemy fighter plane before going down.
“Hence he was posthumously awarded the Mahavir Chakra in 1988 and 55 years after his attaining martyrdom the statue will be installed in Madikeri. But the credit goes to the Ajjamada family which took the initiative to get the statue sculpted and installed’’, said Mr. Subramani.
He said in Mysuru, the office of the Department of Sainik Welfare and Resettlement was named after Sqn. Ldr. A.B. Devayya in 2004. “But what is disconcerting is that a war memorial proposed in Mysuru to commemorate the memory of other unsung heroes and martyrs of yesteryear is yet to materialise though it was approved in 2001,” he added.
Though a site has been allotted for the proposed war memorial near the NCC group headquarters in the city and even funding was approved two years ago, the project is yet to take off and become a reality, Mr. Subramani regretted.