IAF engraves name of Sqn Ldr Ravi Khanna on National War Memorial

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has engraved the name of Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, who was killed in 1990 by separatist Yasin Malik-led Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on the National War Memorial in Delhi.

"The name of Sqn Ldr Khanna has been included on the National War Memorial after the Air Headquarters cleared the case in this regard," IAF sources said here.

The decision was taken in the last week of September by the Indian Air Force.

The names of personnel killed in action are provided by the respective services to the National War Memorial and they are then put up on the walls there along with the detail of action in which they had laid down their lives.

Yasin Malik who heads a banned faction named Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is accused of being involved in the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel - including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna - in Kashmir, in 1990.

On January 25, 1990, four IAF personnel, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, were killed in firing by JKLF terrorists.

The names of the other three personnel killed that day have already been included in the list of IAF soldiers killed in action but somehow his name was not included.

Malik was charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the TADA court in Jammu on August 31, 1990, in connection with the case.

Malik, who has been arrested in a terror funding case by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) and currently lodged in Tihar Jail, would be produced in the special court through video conferencing on October 23.

Nirmal Khanna, the wife of Squadron Leader Khanna, has been fighting for justice for her late husband. She hailed the inclusion of her husband's name in the National War Memorial.

( With inputs from ANI )