Major General (Retired) Somnath Jha, aged 58 years, after serving the Army for 37 years, remains a man on the mission. This third generation soldier took up the daunting task of cycling throughout the Nation for 183 days as his tribute to around 21,000 Armed Forces martyrs since Independence. He cycled 11000km in 43,528 minutes, dedicating two minutes of cycling to each martyr. Asked as to ‘why two minutes of cycling’ and the Veteran replied ‘we observe two minutes silence for each of our martyr’. 

On this journey, Major General Jha was pleasantly surprised at the support from individuals, local government offices, police and citizen groups. He was overwhelmed by the fact that most people he met related to the sentiment of his mission and joined in to pay homage to the martyrs for whom he was riding. 

Gen Jha concluded his homage journey by laying of wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti on 19 Apr 2017 and vowed to undertake similar endeavour once the National War Memorial is dedicated to the Nation. 

Col Aman Anand

PRO (Army) 

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