43 years after IAF officer’s death, wife gets ₹1 crore in dues

Widow of Flight Lieutenant Chandrasekhar S.I. reunited with Indian Air Force after receiving long-overdue financial settlement through Project Sambandh.

Forty-three years after the tragic death of Flight Lieutenant Chandrasekhar S.I. while preventing a train robbery on November 21, 1981, his wife reconnected with the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Saturday (November 30, 2024) when over ₹1 crore in arrears was credited to her.

For the 70-year-old woman, who did not want her name to be publicised, it was not the financial settlement that mattered the most, but the restoration of the bond with the force that her late husband had served.

Colonel Vembu Shankar, a Shaurya Chakra awardee, and founder of Project Sambandh, emphasised that the emotional significance of this reconnection far outweighed the monetary aspect.

After Chandrasekhar’s death, his wife, from Chennai’s Thiruvanmiyur, had endured decades of uncertainty over the pension benefits until the efforts of Project Sambandh brought her family’s rightful entitlements back into focus.

Chandrasekhar, also from Chennai (then Madras), was on annual leave and travelling from Lucknow to Chennai when four armed robbers attacked the train in Chambal. He fought back to protect fellow passengers but got shot. The robbers fled and no passenger was harmed. The IAF officer was on his way to meet his wife, who was then nine months’ pregnant, and their two-year-old son. His valour was posthumously honoured with a Kirti Chakra in 1982.

Following Chandrasekhar’s death, his family faced financial strain from the delayed entitlements. His wife was labelled a ‘widow’ and for the family, the emotional burden of losing a beloved father and husband was immense, said Col. Shankar.

The woman relocated to Australia in 1984 and remarried in 2002, due to which her pension was stopped. Despite being entitled to a pension and allowances due to her husband’s gallantry award, she did not receive the benefits as the spelling of her name was incorrect and the documents were insufficient. These were rectified under Project Sambandh.