MARTYRED NCO’S WIFE GETS COMMISSIONED AS LIEUTENENT

Indian Military Veterans

MARTYRED NCO’S WIFE GETS COMMISSIONED AS LIEUTENENT

Scripting history, 26-year-old Priya Semwal, who lost her husband in a counter-insurgency operation two years back, was on Saturday inducted into the technical wing of the Armed Force as a young officer.

From a college-going woman married to an Army jawan in 2006 to an officer commissioned into the Corps of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME) of the Army today, her life has come a full circle.

Lt Semwal is one of the 62 women, besides the 194 men, who were commissioned into the Indian Army as short service officers at the ceremonial passing out parade at the Officers Training Academy in Chennai.

The mother of the then four-year-old Khwahish Sharma,  Lt Semwal’s future looked bleak when she heard the death of her husband Naik Amit Sharma serving with the 14 Rajput regiment in a counter-insurgency operation near hilly Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh in 2012.

There might be instances where wives of Army officers would have joined the force after their death, but this is probably the first time, the wife of a Non Commissioned Officer (NCO) has become an officer.

“Initially, I did not know what to do. I had a daughter studying... Later, I realised it would be only right to follow my husband into the forces,” said Lt Semwal.

While Priya Semwal was only a first-year undergraduate student when she got married in 2006, she had completed post graduation in Mathematics and a Bachelor’s degree in teaching and employed in a coaching institute at her native Dehradun, when her husband was killed.

Standing at a distance, the officer’s mother Vaishaka Semwal, was short of words, seeing her daughter become a symbol of hope and inspiration to many.

“Though there was hesitation initially, she wanted to face it and become an officer and we supported her. We are very proud of it now,” the officer’s brother Pravesh Semwal said.

The story of Priya Semwal stands out to be an inspiration for many young people fighting the odds....

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